Leggatt makes it back; changing the ratings game

After being plagued with a variety of injuries since winning in Tucson in 2002, Ian Leggatt has had a tough time of it. Arm injuries, a reported allergy to grass (never a good thing for a golfer) and finally surgery to fix some of these problems, kept him from playing regularly on tour for most of the last two years.
Regardless of his troubles, Leggatt is back after making it through Q-School this past weekend. For Leggatt, who turns 40 this year, it could be one of his final shots at proving he belongs on tour. After all, that Tucson win came with a field of golfers few have ever heard of.
Score's article on Leggatt is here.
Leggatt will join Jon Mills and Mike Weir as the Canadians on tour next year. Calgary-via-Trinidad golfer Stephen Ames will also be in PGA Tour fields in 2006.
Also worth checking out is a story is a story by Brad King in the Island Packet about Joe Passov, who is the new head of Golf Magazine's course ratings panel. Now I know I've written enough about this damned course ratings issue following the announcement that Dakota Dunes had won Best New Course in Canada, but this article is worth checking out.
Among the notable issues is that Golf is adding new criteria to the process (before there was no predetermined categories for rating courses in the magazine), making it similar to the way Golf Digest and Golfweek do their rankings. In Passov's words, it has to deal with this:

Said Passov: "If you say to yourself, 'Well, I'm stepping onto this golf course, and I'm really happy to be here. It's held four U.S. Opens and there's the picture of Bobby Jones on the wall and Ben Hogan, and by golly I'm just predisposed to like this place because it just has an awesome feel.' "Some people can separate that and simply break it down into design elements. Other people, whether they can separate it or not, feel like it is an integral part of the golf course."

And apparently, as the Golf Digest list shows, some people have no sense of what differentiates a good course from a great one.
Passov added that creating clear categories to determine what makes a great golf course is a positive thing.

"In my opinion, that's not all bad," said Passov. "That means they're examining the process as best they can and trying to come up with the best and fairest rankings possible. But at the end of the day, it's still hard to be perfectly objective when evaluating a golf course. As best as you can try, there are still
some subjective factors: Peoples' personal likes and dislikes."

The entire story is here. Thanks to Geoff Shackelford for pointing this one out.