Official MGS course reviews

[Aotearoa_Brad]

I was looking back at Dan's (GolfSpyMBP's) review of Sandpiper Golf Course and had a couple of thoughts....

 

1) Great review Dan, a good balance between information and opinion - should be a template for further reviews in fact....

 

2) I know the MGS staff are really busy, but it would be great to see a few more official MGS Course Reviews. It could be a really good way of increasing exposure to the site (linking to golf course social media pages and their audiences) and even through search engine results....

 

3) The ranking system that Dan utilized was pretty simple, but aligns well with other 'review scorecards' used on the Blog etc and is a really good way (IMO) of giving an overall score for a course. As an aside, I think the awards are a very nice addition (see example that I 'borrowed' from MBPs review below

 

 

My thoughts anyway. What are others' thoughts re the usefulness of course reviews?

[whiskey golf]

I like course reviews and think they are a great idea. They can be especially helpful for people that travel to different states and major cities and want to find a nice place to golf. But it's cool to see what's out there either way.

[Mr_Theoo]

I like course reviews and think they are a great idea. They can be especially helpful for people that travel to different states and major cities and want to find a nice place to golf. But it's cool to see what's out there either way.

 

Exactly my thinking. Even course reviews in my own city would benefit me since there are plenty I have no clue about

[The Dansome]

I was looking back at Dan's (GolfSpyMBP's) review of Sandpiper Golf Course and had a couple of thoughts....

 

1) Great review Dan, a good balance between information and opinion - should be a template for further reviews in fact....

 

 

Thanks Brad. I gotta tell ya there's a lot that goes into these things and I had to read through prior Spy examples to really get a feel. I would also recommend anyone wanting to write their own reviews to study Matt's original guide here as it is what I consider the quintessential rating guide for reviewing a course.

 

 

2) I know the MGS staff are really busy, but it would be great to see a few more official MGS Course Reviews. It could be a really good way of increasing exposure to the site (linking to golf course social media pages and their audiences) and even through search engine results....

 

 

Although not my official role around here I do intend to review most of the new courses I play from here on out. I do hope I've hope I've gained some credibility off this one and you guys will pay attention to me in the future.

 

As for search results I couldn't agree more 100%, it can't hurt one bit to build our forum course review sections into almost a database. It's never a bad thing when someone Google's something and you're site comes up.

 

 

3) The ranking system that Dan utilized was pretty simple, but aligns well with other 'review scorecards' used on the Blog etc and is a really good way (IMO) of giving an overall score for a course. As an aside, I think the awards are a very nice addition (see example that I 'borrowed' from MBPs review below

 

 

 

Of course the sectional review (conditions, difficulty etc) are standardized around here and the rating out of 100 is gold. Breaking a course down into the 10 categories makes it hard to screw up almost.

 

Now as for the rating badges I'll admit I took a little liberty on my own there. But if it makes a course proud and they run that badge on their site or social it's a win exposure for us.

 

With that said I'm trying to break these down to about 2-4 categories that will not just be thrown out every time I review something. I've got 2 I like (best value obviously) and maybe you guys can chime in on the necessity of others and/or what they could be. Keep in mind long names will screw up my badge formatting

 

Best Value

Must Play

 

 

 

As for now I have my eye on a couple resorts during a Vancouver Island trip next month that I would love to take a peak at.

[The Dansome]

Another thing I'd like to do is using the laid out template/criteria identify a few members in different regions who could write "member reviews" to populate this database. I'm guessing you'd be our Kiwi reporter on this one Brad, but minimum of 2 sheep photos per review.

[BestGrips.com]

GolfSpy MBP has really brought this together. I'm anxiously awaiting his next review and the unveiling of the new badges.

[Caddyshack_Rentals]

This sounds like a great idea! I've recently started reading the reviews on here, looking forward to seeing more of them on MGS.

 

A ranking of courses would be another great addition, what do you all think?