Golfweek's 2007 Rankings

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I got my first look at the Golfweek Top 100 (not posted online). Obviously it was hard not to giggle at the site of Augusta National dropping from 3rd to 10th (Dr. MacKenzie, Bobby Jones and every other golfer with use of their eyes has been wondering what took so long). It was also great to see Herbert Fowler's Eastward Ho! finally get the recognition it deserves by making the list, though this essentially ends its reign as the best kept secret in America.

On the modern side, Rustic Canyon is somehow hanging on at No. 100 in spite of well, we won't go there.  Not making the list was Erin Hills, the new Hurdzan-Fry-Whitten design outside of Milwaukee. Golfweek's Brad Klein obviously didn't give it a very high score:

Errant Hills Award: Erin Hills, Hartford, Wisc. A much-ballyhooed new co-design of Golf Digest architecture editor Ron Whitten and professional designers Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry. Too bad it opened a season early in late 2006, though inadequate fescue turf cover is the least of this sprawling daily fee’s problems. The U.S. Golf Association heralds it as a likely future U.S. Open site, but the routing is a mess, in large part because Whitten insisted on moving no dirt at all – thereby taking trendy “minimalism” to its absurd extreme. The raw site is great, but half a dozen holes are inexcusably awkward and much of the bunkering is overexcavated and unmaintainable. The 593-yard par-5 10th hole offers a blind, fall away Biarritz green; the short par-4 second putting surface ends before it begins; and the completely blind par-3 seventh “Dell Hole” plays up and over to the bottom of a vast taco shell. They should have thought “inside the bun” on this one.