Trivia About Golf Magazine's "Top 100 Courses You Can Play"

The September 2014 issue of Golf Magazine is now in the public record, having arrived in my mailbox on Thursday, August 7. It is in the September issue of every even year that Golf Magazine publishes its latest list of the top 100 public courses in the United States, better known as "Top 100 Courses You Can Play".

I will admit to being a statistics nut. I have kept a log of every course that has ever been on Golf Magazine's "Top 100 Courses You Can Play" list. I've analyzed each of these lists over the years and thought I'd document some interesting facts about the list over the past eighteen years in this post.

• Thirty-nine states have had courses on the list. Here are the eleven that are still waiting: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont.
• California leads the states with 19 courses of the 207. Guess which states are tied for second with 15? I'll give you one of the two - Arizona. The second will surprise you. See below for the answer.
  
• The nine Northeast states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont combined have only 14 of the 207.
• Hawaii has 8 of the 207.
• Scottsdale, Arizona is the top city with 6 entries (Troon North (Pinnacle), Troon North (Monument), Grayhawk (Talon), Grayhawk (Raptor), Talking Stick (North), and Legend Trail).
• Pinehurst, North Carolina is next with five entries (Pinehurst #2, #4, #7, #8, and Pinehurst Plantation).
• Bandon, Oregon has four entries (Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails, and Old Macdonald).
• No other city has more than three.
• Thirty-six courses have made an appearance on every one of the ten biennial lists.
• Forty-two courses have been on only one of the ten lists.
• Four courses no longer exist.  High Pointe, Tom Doak's first design in Williamsburg, MI, opened in 1989 and closed by 2009 due to the economy; Reflection Bay, a Jack Nicklaus design in Henderson, NV, succumbed to the bedeviling 2008 housing downturn; Beechtree, also a Tom Doak design in Aberdeen, MD, and Blue Heron Pines, a Steve Smyers design in Cologne, NJ, went the other way and were sold to become upscale housing.
• Tom Fazio has been a prolific course architect having designed 26 of the 207 courses (including two collaborations). Pete Dye has designed 15 of the courses and Jack Nicklaus has designed 14 plus two redesigns.
• The family Jones (Robert Trent Sr., Robert Trent Jr., and Rees) have designed 32 of the courses plus 3 redesigns.
• Only 17 of the 207 courses were designed prior to 1950 and include classics by Donald Ross, C.B. Macdonald, Alister MacKenzie, and A.W. Tillinghast.  
• For the 2014 list, California still leads the pack with eleven entries followed by Florida with eight and Arizona, Oregon, and South Carolina with seven.
• Thirty-three states have at least one entry on the current list.
• Tom Fazio has 11 designs on the 2014 list (including two collaborations) followed by Pete Dye with 10, the team of Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw with 6, and Jack Nicklaus and Robert Trent Jones Jr. with 5 each. Donald Ross still has 4 of his efforts on the list.
• Only 13 courses on the 2014 list were designed prior to 1950.

The state of Michigan, with 15 entries over the years, is tied with Arizona for second most entries.  Here is the breakdown by state:

• Alabama - 4
  
• Arizona - 15
  
• California - 19
  
• Colorado - 9
  
• Connecticut - 1
  
• Florida - 13
  
• Georgia - 6
  
• Hawaii - 8
  
• Idaho - 3
  
• Illinois - 8
  
• Indiana - 2
  
• Iowa - 1
  
• Louisiana - 1
  
• Maine - 3
  
• Maryland - 3
  
• Massachusetts - 5
  
• Michigan - 15
  
• Minnesota - 5
  
• Mississippi - 3
  
• Missouri - 1
  
• Montana - 2
  
• Nebraska - 2
  
• North Carolina - 10
  
• North Dakota - 1
  
• Nevada - 8
  
• New Jersey - 4
  
• New Mexico - 4
  
• New York - 5
  
• Ohio - 3
  
• Oklahoma - 1
  
• Oregon - 8
  
• Pennsylvania - 1
  
• South Carolina - 9
  
• Texas - 6
  
• Virginia - 6
  
• Washington - 2
  
• West Virginia - 3
  
• Wisconsin - 6
  
• Wyoming -1