Let’s Get Mad and Sort PGA Tour Golf Courses

Certified Friend of the Program (henceforth FOTP), brilliant data mind, and close PGA Tour observer Joseph LaMagna posted his tiering of PGA Tour courses this morning. It’s hard to avoid kicking a hornet’s next with any exercise like this. As someone who works with and analyzes PGA Tour pros, Joseph’s tiering is based how a course tests the pros and if there is something unique about its ability to test the best on tour. Kapalua may be “easy” with plenty of birdies, but he views it as a great test of a pro’s abilities. There’s a distinction there that seems clear. Again, this is a sorting or tiering, NOT a ranking.

Official tiering of PGA Tour courses pic.twitter.com/2X3TWcEV9p

— Joseph LaMagna (@JosephLaMagna) January 4, 2023

Joseph was clear to communicate that there was not some robust criteria that went into this — it’s a social media post. But he did double down on Riviera not being top tier based on his criteria and felt the entire graphic was a fair reflection of how he views these courses abilities to test the pros. Perhaps that says something larger about the pro game?

With the return of Tour golf this week and this full 2023 schedule ahead of us, we created a template for your own sorting if that’s something you’d like to do and are the kind of person who goes around kicking hornet’s nests. For your ease of use, the tiers are in a more uniform A-F format and do not have the creative names of Joseph’s like “just bunkers, grass, and some trees.” But you are able to edit that at the link here by clicking the little settings wheel icon on the right to add your own whimsical text beyond just letter grades. You can also add more rows if you really want to start splitting hairs. Share your own tiering with any additional context below in the comments. Or you can just get mad and holler at Joseph’s sorting.

Not included in our template are the three men’s rotating majors. We did include the Canadian Open, which has bounced around to different venues — feel free to judge them as a whole or just leave it unplaced.

You should also follow Joseph on Twitter. You may not agree with this exercise, but he will make you a more thoughtful golfer and viewer. Andy may or may not weigh in with his own tiering, or even ranking!, of the slate that awaits us this year on the PGA Tour once he’s out from under the deluge in Central California.