Want to know more about some far-flung golf course that most people have never heard of? Want to dig into the details of the Golfweek’s Best course rankings, or those of other publications? Or just want to sit and listen with fascination as one of the most well-traveled players in the world speaks with incredible intelligence about great golf holes, long walks and dream vacations?
Jonathan Cummings is your guy. Conveniently, he works as a consultant for Golfweek, running the database that drives all our course rankings. He also authored “The Rating Game,” an absolute insider’s book that takes a look at various course rankings and features a foreword by architect Tom Doak, whom Cummings has known for decades.
A retired mechanical engineer and general math whiz who also worked as an anti-submarine warfare consultant for DARPA within the U.S. Department of Defense, Cummings must begrudgingly admit to being a list “chaser,” one of those afflicted souls who tries to play every course on various best-of lists. This summer he completed a doozy, having finished a list of the top 100 golf courses in Ireland, counting both the Republic and Northern Ireland. He already was more than halfway through the list when he acquired Irish citizenship and set about playing 45 more top courses around the Emerald Isle.
Following are his thoughts on list chasing, golf in Ireland, how rankings work and what’s next.
How did you get into the chase, and why?
I’ll bet, like many other chasers, you really don’t make a beginning “decision” to chase lists. It’s more likely you wake up one day, having traveled for golf significantly and having just read a magazine top-100 list, and ask yourself, “Geez, I wonder how many I’ve played?” If you find you’ve played a significant number, then it’s not a stretch to set the goal for yourself to try for them all.
There are obstacles. For me (and undoubtedly many others), it was Augusta National. As ANGC is on most of the top lists, until you’ve checked that off, completing a top list is not reachable. I was lucky to have a friend of a friend invite me for a few days to ANGC, so after that, completing a number of top-100 lists became within reach.
The “why” is easy. If you love to travel, love to play golf, are intrigued and want to investigate how no two golf courses are alike, then a top-100 list can be viewed as a road map, channeling your travel plans.
How did you compile your top 100 in Ireland, what with lists changing within the span of you playing them all?
There are only several top-100 Ireland lists published that I’m aware of (there are probably others). Golf Monthly’s Irish Golfer top-100 lists have been published for 20 years or so. It’s an Irish magazine with a panel of mostly writers run by the editor of Irish Golfer. Top100golfcourses.com also does an Irish top-100 list. I asked some knowledgeable friends which list was considered “more the standard” and was told Irish Golfer. I made a spreadsheet with every course on all Irish Golfer annual lists since the IG lists had been published. As of October 2024, I had played 55 of the most recent 2024 list.
At about this same time I received word that after applying and submitting paperwork, I was granted Irish citizenship (a whole story in itself). So while I had been to Ireland many times before, I decided that in tribute to my new passport, it would be fun to spend a summer there and play the 45 courses I hadn’t played on the 2024 Irish Golfers top-100 list.
Because there have been few new courses built in Ireland over the span of Irish Golfer’s lists, it turns out it really didn’t matter which list I had chosen. Unlike Golfweek’s Top 200 Modern course ranking, which changes with each publication as new courses are added, the Irish Golfer lists were mostly the same. In fact, I only have to play 15 more Irish courses to complete all the lists of the past 20 years. It was the same for top100golfcourses.com. I’m essentially done with those lists (maybe missing one or two) as well.
Question everyone will ask: What are your top five in Ireland, and why those?
A list of my top Irish golf courses would likely be similar or even the same as those lists from many others. The “Big Five” of Ireland – County Down, Lahinch, Ballybunion, Portmarnock and Portrush – are broadly considered to sit at the head of the Irish class. I don’t disagree.
To me, Royal County Down ranks so highly because of its sheer jaw-dropping beauty. It’s not without its warts: too many blind shots, and it may border on being too penal. But to see Royal County Down in the autumn when the heather and gorse are in bloom, with the sea to one side and the noble steeple of the Slieve Donard hotel framed by the Mourne Mountains on the other … well, it doesn’t get much better than this. If there is something close to spiritual in the game of golf, this is it.
My love for Portrush is based on my admiration of the well-contoured, sometimes terrifying putting surfaces. The Ballybunion “why” is based on pure awe as to how the course (back nine in particular) is ingeniously routed up, over, below, alongside and through the dramatic dunes. Portmarnock’s circular routing, like Muirfield’s, continuously changes a player’s wind-correction adjustments, brilliantly confounding targeting. And the “why” for Lahinch is more emotional. It’s undeniably a world-class tactical challenge with some surprising and even whimsical holes, great beauty and an 18-chapter book tied together to tell a compelling overall story – Lahinch is all this but something else. The farm my grandfather was born on (still in the family) is not far away, and Lahinch is the first great U.K. course I ever played many years ago.
Next question everyone will ask: Which of the non-big-name courses stood out to you, and why?
Links highlights included: Arklow, Rosslare, North West, RCD Annesley and the fabulous Wild Atlantic Dunes nine at Carne (I played the original 18 at Carne some 30 years ago.) Why? Because with only about 250 true links courses in the world, it’s a delight to find any new ones with character that you haven’t played.
Parkland highlights included Dun Laoghaire, Bunclody, Ballinrobe, Royal Belfast, Malone, Belvoir Park, Naas and Tulfarris. Each commands a noteworthy setting, which is one reason that sets them apart, particularly with Bunclody, Belfast and Tulfarris.
Also, quite a number of the second-echelon parklands I found were mostly American and somewhat forgettable. There are easily 20 to 30 courses on the Irish Golfer top-100 list that I would not be interested in playing again.
What makes Irish golf special and distinct for you, as compared to Scotland or other links-golf destinations?
Man, put me most anywhere in the U.K. and I’m in seventh heaven. Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland, Cornwall, the Hebrides and everywhere else in the U.K. — I’ve been to most all of them many times. I don’t think any one area in the U.K. is better than any other. Some areas like Liverpool, Troon, Fife, The Lothians, Dover, et cetera, have more concentrations of great links golf, probably more so than any one area of Ireland, but for me Ireland gets the edge on being special because of my Irish heritage. And besides, the Guinness tastes better in Ireland.
What’s it like for an American to spend such a long summer in Ireland? Any highlights?
I’m lucky enough to be quite familiar with the Emerald Isle. Being in Ireland for an extended time was really not too different from being over there for a “standard” trip of one to two weeks.
As you may imagine, the required planning involved was extensive. It took all winter, but it worked out well as I basically had no hiccups during the trip. I was by myself the entire time, which is probably something I wouldn’t like to do again. I ended up with many tee times at the end of the day behind full tee sheets, which often made for long rounds. I was also almost never paired with anyone, so I didn’t end up meeting a lot of folks.
Some other random observations: I put a ton of miles on a rental car, 2,500 miles without leaving the island. I also found that I enjoyed the smaller towns more than the big ones. Finally, I was insanely lucky with the weather. It was warm (even sometimes hot) with little rain – while I was rained on during a few rounds, I was not rained out of any of the 45 courses I played.
When you look at the various lists, especially in Ireland, does anything make an eyebrow stand up?
I was surprised by the lack of depth of the various Irish lists before it dawned on me how few candidates any Irish top-100 list draws from. There are around 400 courses on the entire island, of which around 50 are 9-holers. That means that around 30 percent of all the 18-hole courses make a top-100 Irish list. Compare that to the U.S. with 16,000 courses, meaning that only around the top half a percent of the U.S. courses make a top-100 list.
That is likely why I was a little disappointed in some of the Irish top 100 in the second half of the list. They were certainly worthy courses, but not in the same league as the second half of courses in an American or combined U.K. top-100 list.
You have so much experience with rating, and have written the book — what oddities jump out in course rating?
Umm. I believe that all the magazines concentrate too much on rating courses. At the end of the day, all magazines that I know of publish lists of golf courses that are rank-ordered (including all published Golfweek lists). While assigning numbers in an attempt to measure golf course quality is a common approach, it’s really done because it simplifies post-processing — running averages and sorting results. The problem is this intermediate processing step introduces errors in the final sorted lists.
I’m a firm believer that the best rater uses a spreadsheet and sorts his/her own list without the initial use of numbers. A simple best-to- worst personal list, with new courses added to the spreadsheet as they are played, should be developed by every rater. There is a method that is outlined in “The Rating Game” of laterally combining many personal ranked lists into one overall ranked list.
I’m not a big fan of categories, either, for much the same argument. Categories can be hard to quantify and sometimes of questionable value. Quantifying categories and summing them based on some formula is doubly bad as it introduces not one but several intermediate steps, each with associated errors.
What’s next for you? I don’t believe for a minute that you’re done looking at great courses.
Probably a little more “chasing” in me, but at 73 I’m not far from list-chasing retirement.
I’ve played 30 to 40 of the top courses in Australia, but I’ll never complete the Aussie top 100. Same for Europe, especially Eastern Europe – I’ve played the European world-ranked courses but am unlikely to get to many of the others. Again, same for Asia – played the greats, but there are many on various lists I haven’t played and am unlikely to see.
I’m intrigued by Canada. Scores Magazine has listed the top 100 courses in Canada for years. I’ve played 30 or so of them, so I think over maybe three years, the current top 100 would be doable. Getting in a car from home and going for a drive for a month or so sounds appealing as compared to recovering from jet lag after flights over the ponds.
I’ll need to practice, “Oh Canada!”