Golf Digest's annual survey of America's Best New Courses is in abeyance.
No point in producing top-10 lists like Best New Public and Best New Private when only 24 new courses opened in the last half of 2009, and just 18 more opened in 2010, plus a smattering of international nominees.
So our 950 Course Ranking panelists focused on Best in State and America's 100 Greatest candidates while I covered the entire new-course field (except for two places where the gates were padlocked at the time I reached them). It was tiresome travel but an invigorating assignment. Unshackled from the obligations of objectivity, I really got to be a critic for a change, expressing rather than suppressing my likes and dislikes on the basis of ever-shifting whims. But I didn't let a good score dissuade my conclusion that a design was dumb, or allow a bad round to spoil my admiration for a course well done.
So what follows is not a substitute for the carefully assembled, consensus rankings usually done by our panelists. It's simply one man's observations on the latest group of courses, plugged into categories of my choosing.