LINKS Magazine doesn't do golf course rankings. They're hard to get just right, and you invariably wind up having the owners, members, pros, architects, greenskeepers, waiters, etc., of every course except one (No. 1) mad at you.
But like anyone else, I enjoy looking at the various lists to see how my personal evaluations of these courses compared to these rankings, which a great man once referred to as "a collective guess, an objective average of subject opinions."
That said, I fully expect the 7,294-yard Ballyhack Golf Club outside Roanoke, Virginia, to be on the short list of the best courses of the year. Architect Lester George built some dramatic holes on former farmland. After the jump, some more pics to get the award season started. (Click on the images for full-size versions.)