For years, golf course rankings have tried to answer a deceptively simple question: what makes a golf course great?

We intuitively believe that our overall golf experience includes, but extends beyond pure course design. But we were curious to learn how the official ratings worked.

This week, we sit down with Golf Digest course rating panelist David Rawlinson to explore that question from every angle — architecture, strategy, aesthetics, conditioning, atmosphere, history, and the emotional pull that keeps golfers coming back to certain places.

Along the way, we talk about:

• Why some famous holes work so well
• Risk/reward and “choose your own adventure” golf
• Trees, walkability, routing, and the psychology of design
• Whether great golf architecture can ever really be objective

As the conversation unfolds, we circle around the main question: is it possible to separate a course rating from your experience?

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Design by: Austin Wooldridge

Music provided by: ⁠https://www.classicals.de/mozart-figaro