Magazine misses fairway with rankings.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

Quick! What's the best golf city in the Pacific Northwest?

Bandon, you say?

I'll go with Bend (Once a Lava Bear, always a Lava Bear.)

We're both wrong, says Golf Digest magazine. It's Corvallis.

Corvallis? That's a football town, isn't it?

Be that as it may, the August issue of Golf Digest places Corvallis 39th on its ranking of "America's Best Golf Cities," higher than any other place in Oregon, Washington or Idaho.

Corvallis! Home of Trysting Tree and ... and ... How can that be?

The rankings, wrote Golf Digest's editors, are based on four criteria:

"Access to golf" (each city was given a score based on four factors: the number of holes in an area compared with its population; the number of holes compared with the number of avid golfers; the percentage of public vs. private courses; and a measure of the number of rounds played compared with capacity).

Weather (based on the number of "golfable" days per year).

Value of golf (based on the average greens fee in the area).

Quality of golf (based on the average "star" ratings in Golf Digest's "Places to Play" guidebook).

Access counted for 45 percent of the total score, weather 25 percent, value and quality of golf 15 percent each.

Corvallis ranked 88th for access, 84th in the number of golfable days per year (272 days with an average temperature above 60 degrees), 72nd for value (average green fee of $31) and 257th for quality.

The magazine's editors said all 330 of America's "Metropolitan Statistical Areas" with a population greater than 50,000 were scored using the above criteria, then listed in rank order, from best (Auburn-Opelika, Alabama) to worst (Jersey City, N.J.).

Eugene-Springfield is listed in 253rd place, having been downgraded for value (average green fee: $49.60), weather (eight fewer golfable days per year than Corvallis) and access to golf (ranked 253rd out of 330).

Quality of golf here was a nice 29th, however.

Northwest cities ranked between Corvallis and Eugene were: Bellingham (113); Boise (135); Salem (147) and Spokane (184).

No Bandon. But it's obviously not a "city."

And no Bend! Which strikes Alana Audette, executive director of the Central Oregon Visitors Association (COVA), as exceedingly odd.

"As recently as 2000, the readers of Golf Digest ranked this area as one of the top 50 golf destinations in the world," Audette said. (There are 24 golf courses in the Bend area, and they recorded 472,000 rounds of play in 2004, according to COVA).

Informed that Corvallis was now Golf Digest's poster child for Oregon golf, Audette said: "Oh, my, that's pretty outrageous!'

The magazine "must have had some statistical reason to exclude us," she said.

If so, it's not readily apparent, given that Bend meets the two criteria mentioned in the magazine article. Bend is a Metropolitan Statistical Area, according to a list of "principal cities" published by the U.S. Census Bureau. And Bend's population is well over 50,000. The Oregon Blue Book lists Bend with 62,900 residents (as of 2003).

I called the editorial offices of Golf Digest, seeking an explanation for the omission, but a message left with the person responsible for ratings was not returned.

Whatever Bend's score would have been this year, it's likely to get only better in the coming years - at least as far as the "access to golf" criterion is concerned. Ten new courses are reportedly on the drawing board in the region.

Indeed, Bend is becoming more and more like my favorite winter golfing destination, Palm Springs.

Speaking of Palm Springs, it too was omitted from Golf Digest's list of 330 golf cities.

The magazine's top-ranked "golf city" in California is Vallejo-Fairfield-Napa (at 110th overall).

Corvallis and Fairfield, best golf cities in the West?

That's a big "FORE!"

Mike Stahlberg can be reached at [e-mail].