How we judge
Every course in the guide was played in person, start to finish, and judged on the same five things. Awards are opinions, held to a standard and explained in writing. Difficulty is not an opinion, so it is measured instead.
The awards
- Three Flights: Worth the trip
A course people should plan a trip around. Every part of it is excellent, and it plays like nowhere else.
- Two Flights: Worth a detour
Worth going out of your way for. Strong on most of the criteria, outstanding on at least one.
- One Flight: Worth a stop
If you're nearby, play it. A well-made course with a clear reason to be here.
- Selected: Selected
In the guide without a mark. A good, honest course; most players in the area should know it.
Distinctions
- Local Gem
- A free park course that plays far above what it costs, which is nothing.
- Well Kept
- Stewardship worth naming: the crew or club behind it does the work, and it shows.
The five criteria
- Design
- Shot variety, fair risk and reward, and holes that ask for more than one throw.
- Setting
- The land and how the course uses it: woods, water, elevation, quiet.
- Upkeep
- Tee pads, baskets, signs and fairways, kept up across the seasons.
- Flow
- Short, obvious walks from basket to tee, and a round that never doubles back into traffic.
- Character
- The thing you remember on the drive home. A course with a point of view.
Difficulty is measured
A course's tier comes from its scratch score: what a 1000-rated player is expected to shoot, taken from PDGA rated rounds or from rounds players logged. It sits next to the award, never inside it. A Three Flights course can be a red-tier course for beginners.
- goldScratch 60 or more
- blueScratch 54 to 60
- whiteScratch 48 to 54
- redScratch under 48
The inspector's rules
- Pay your own way. No free rounds, no hosted visits.
- No ties to the course: not a designer, sponsor or club officer there.
- Play the whole course, on the layout the award is for.
- Revisit every edition. Courses can gain a mark, and they can lose one.
- Only real photos taken at the course. If a photo is missing, the page says so.