Ranking Hamilton County's golf courses

I mentioned in my last post that my home county (Hamilton County, Indiana) has 22 golf courses, 15 of which are public.  I've been fortunate enough to play 14 of the 15 public courses, plus one of the private ones.  In alphabetical order, sorted by public/private status, they are:

PUBLIC:
Bear Slide Golf Club (Cirero)
http://bearslide.com/

Brookshire Golf Club (Carmel)
http://www.brookshiregolf.com/

Forest Park Golf Course (Noblesville)
http://www.forestparkgolf.com/

Fox Prairie Golf Course (Noblesville)
http://www.foxprairie.com/

Gray Eagle Golf Club (Fishers)
http://www.grayeaglegolf.com/

Ironwood Golf Club (Fishers)
http://ironwoodgc.com/

Mohawk Hills Golf Course (Carmel)
http://www.indygolf.com/course/mowhawk-hills-golf-club_73/

Pebble Brook Golf Club (Noblesville)
http://www.pebblebrookgolfclub.com/

Plum Creek Golf Club (Carmel)
http://www.plumcreekcc.com/

Prairie View Golf Club (Carmel)
http://www.prairieviewgc.com/

Purgatory Golf Club (Noblesville)
http://www.purgatorygolf.com/

River Glen Country Club (Fishers)
http://www.riverglencc.com/

Stony Creek Golf Club (Noblesville)
http://www.stonycreekgolfclub.com/

Sunrise Golf Course (mailing address is Indianapolis, but it's located in Carmel)
http://www.indygolf.com/course/sunrise-golf-club_31

Wood Wind Golf Club (Westfield)
http://www.woodwindgolf.com/

PRIVATE:


Crooked Stick Golf Club (Carmel)
http://www.crookedstick.org/

Harbour Trees Golf Club (Noblesville)
http://www.harbourtrees.com/

The Bridgewater Club (Carmel)
http://www.thebridgewaterclub.com/

The Hawthorns Golf and Country Club (Fishers)
http://www.hawthornscountryclub.com/

The Sagamore Club (Noblesville)
http://www.thesagamoreclub.com/

Twin Lakes Golf Club (Carmel)
http://www.twinlakesclub.com/

Woodland Country Club (Carmel)
http://www.woodlandcc.com/


I've been thinking about and working on some county course rankings, with the ultimate goal of applying a multi-factor process to produce composite scores for each course.  I would welcome your personal rankings, comments, questions, and suggestions to make my evaluations more useful or more informed.  For my initial list, I've simply ordered the courses based on preferences for playing them under perfect circumstances - cost not considered, no other groups on the course, weather is just right, no time contraints, etc.  If someone told me on a summer Tuesday at noon that I could go play any Hamilton County course, on the house, I would rank them as follows:

1. Prairie View.
2. Bear Slide
3. Plum Creek
4. Purgatory
----
5. Wood Wind
6. River Glen
7. Ironwood
8. Pebble Brook
----
9. Fox Prairie
10. Gray Eagle
11. Stony Creek
12. Brookshire
----
13. Forest Park
14. Sunrise
15. Mohawk Hills

I've also developed tiers for separating comparable courses for purposes of rankings and evaluations.  My "double eagle" tier includes #1-4 above, the "eagle" tier includes Wood Wind through Pebble Brook (#5-8), and the "birdie" tier covers numbers 9-12.  The three 9-hole courses make up the "par" tier.  (Because even when golf is average or mediocre, it's still good, if you know what I mean.)  Sunrise is the only one on the list above that I haven't played, so after playing there I may want to revise the rankings, but since it's a 9-hole I thought it made sense to list it in the same tier as Forest Park and Mohawk Hills.

For my more ambitious and data driven rankings phase, I've come up with some evaluation categories that I believe factor into my decisions - and most other golfers' decisions - about where to schedule their tee times and outings.  If you think this list should be tweaked or added to in any way, let me know.  Would love to hear about your thought process for picking courses and ranking them against each other.

Within each category, I'll assign a score on a scale of 1-10, and then ultimately I'll average the categories scores for overall composite scores and put out a new results list.  Some of the classification sets may seem to overlap, but I believe the associated considerations are distinct enough to give them separate categories, and I'll explain them further as I share my course-by-course designations.  My working list for evaluation categories includes, at this point:

1 - Appearance/visual design
2 - Condition/maintenance/upkeep
3 - Challenging/unique/strategic design
4 - Space/privacy/crowds/enjoyability
5 - Cost/value
6 - Amenities/perks/atmosphere

So what do you think?  Am I missing anything?  Placing too much importance on anything?  Should any of the categories be weighted?  How much do you think these categories will change the initial rankings I listed above?  Golfers always have a lot of ideas and opinions, so feel free to share yours.

For some more good info on these courses, check out http://8greattowns.com/Golf-Indiana.  It was developed by the Hamilton County Convention and Visitors Bureau, and includes descriptions and links for the county's public courses (excluding Mohawk Hills and Pebble Brook, although the print version has a listing for Pebble Brook), plus 2 Marion County courses - The Fort and Brickyard Crossing.

And remember, even though all of our local courses are covered with several inches of ice and snow right now, it won't be too long before golf season is here.  I played my first round last year on March 15, and in 2009 I even made it out before the end of February.