ORLANDO, Fla., (March 16, 2009) – Golfweek, the publication preferred by serious golfers, has devoted the March 14 issue of the magazine to its annual ratings of the nation’s best golf courses. This highly anticipated issue features Golfweek’s Best Classic and Modern Courses lists – marking the thirteenth year the magazine has ranked golf courses from each era – as well as a state-by-state listing of the country’s best publicaccess courses.
“While a number of perennial favorites continue to top our ratings list, the 2009 Golfweek’s Best list also contains some fascinating newcomers,” said Bradley S. Klein, national director of Golfweek’s Best Courses rating program. “We put the Mike DeVriesdesigned Greywalls Course at Marquette Golf Club (No. 92 Modern) on the cover because the layout represents the spirit and quality of public golf. And we’re especially proud that our list includes a total of 38 daily-fee and resort courses that anyone can play without a private membership.”
The top three spots on both the Classic and Modern lists remain unchanged from last year with Cypress Point Club (Pebble Beach, Calif.), Pine Valley Golf Club (Pine Valley, N.J.) and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club (Southampton, N.Y.) as the frontrunners on the Classic list and Sand Hills Golf Club (Mullen, Neb.), Pacific Dunes (Bandon, Ore.) and Whistling Straits – Straits – (Mosel, Wis.) leading the Modern list.
In addition to these popular standouts, the 2009 Modern list does feature six new layouts, though tying last year as the smallest rookie class in the ranking’s 13-year history. The Golfweek’s Best Courses program annually identifies the best courses from two distinctly different eras-pre- and post-1960. The exclusive system acknowledges that before 1960, the year that separates Classic from Modern, most course designers relied on native contours for course features. After 1960, as the game became more popular, designers began to utilize high-tech engineering and advanced mechanical means to transform the landscape to suit their design.
“The depth of Golfweek’s rating criteria and the breadth of its process are what distinguish the Golfweek’s Best Courses ranking structure from those of other golf publications,” said Terry Olson, vice president and publisher of Golfweek. “Golfweek’s Best Courses lists set the industry standard and are widely recognized for their integrity, credibility and unbiased evaluation of golf’s finest courses.”
Visit Top100.Golfweek.com/GolfweeksBest/ to view the complete list of Golfweek’s Best Courses.
About Golfweek Ratings
Golfweek’s course raters, a nationwide team of more than 475 evaluators, have scoured the landscape, surveyed over 500 Classic and 1,700 Modern nominated courses, and rendered their judgment on the basis of 10 standards of evaluation. Collectively, they have turned in more than 45,000 votes. Golfweek’s Best Courses Lists include: New Courses, Modern Courses, Classic Courses, Casino Courses, Residential Courses, Resort Courses, Courses of the Caribbean and Mexico, Courses You Can Play, Municipal Courses, 19th Holes and Tour Courses You Can Play. The criteria for evaluating the golf courses may be found at Top100.Golfweek.com/GolfweeksBest/.
About Golfweek
Founded in 1975, Golfweek is the publication preferred by serious golfers. Reaching more than 1.3 million readers each week, the magazine delivers the most complete news and information about the game, the people and the lifestyle to golf’s most important audience. Golfweek is part of Turnstile Publishing Company, one of the nation’s leading publishing companies specializing in high-end publications for active and affluent audiences. Turnstile Publishing Company is the parent corporation of such publications as Art Calendar, TurfNet Monthly, The Seminole Voice and The Winter Park/Maitland Observer, as well as the Web sites ArtCalendar.com, ArtScuttlebutt.com, TurfNet.com, SeminoleVoice.com, WPMObserver.com, GolfweekHomes.com and Golfweek.com, which features golf’s first online television network, GolfweekTV. Founded in 1990, Turnstile Publishing Company is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., and is also affiliated with Skyhorse Publishing.
Contact:
Elizabeth Hawkins, Marketing Director
407.563.7006
EHawkins@Golfweek.com
