About Top 22 Picks
Top 22 Picks is a live, crowd-voted ranking of the best public golf courses in every state. Unlike traditional rankings decided by small expert panels, Top 22 Picks lets everyday golfers vote in real time, producing leaderboards that shift as public opinion does. Each state runs a yearly election: voters get 22 votes per state, and the top 22 courses make the cut. Top 22 Picks was founded in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2025 and is backed by investors and a board of advisors.
How the rankings work
Top 22 Picks is built on a simple conviction: no star ratings, no reviews, just votes. Star ratings are a race to the same meaningless 4-point-something, and reviews reward whoever complains the loudest. A vote is different because it costs something. Every voter gets 22 votes per state, with at most 5 on any single course, so backing one course means passing on another. The rankings are the sum of thousands of those real choices, updating in real time until polls close December 31st each year.
Real golfers get a real voice. Active, verified golfers who rank courses and actually play them have their votes weighted more heavily, up to 5x.
Ballot integrity runs quietly underneath: voters sign in with verified Google or Apple accounts, guest votes are limited to a single vote per course and screened by reCAPTCHA and email verification, and a stack of anti-abuse systems watches for anything unusual. The full breakdown is in our guide, How we keep voting fair.
Founder
Michael Anderson is a co-founder of Top 22 Picks, where he leads product and technology. Over 15 years he has built fintech, payments, identity, and data products, from 0-to-1 launches to platforms serving hundreds of thousands of users. He holds an MBA from the University of Arizona, where he picked up a passion for desert golf and a conviction that rankings should be won by votes, not handed down by panels.
Story starters
Course rankings have existed for decades, but Top 22 Picks runs the first ever live election leaderboard for public golf courses: every state gets a ballot, every golfer gets 22 votes, and the standings move the moment a vote lands.
Golf course rankings have always been decided by small expert panels behind closed doors. Top 22 Picks flips that: everyday golfers hold the ballot, and the rankings move in real time as opinion shifts.
Every state runs its own yearly election. Courses campaign, voters stack their 22 votes, and the race for the Top 22 cutoff runs until polls close December 31st.
In several states the #1 and #2 courses are separated by a handful of votes. A local angle that writes itself: check your state's live leaderboard for the current gap.
When actual golfers hold the ballot, beloved municipal and under-the-radar courses out-vote famous big-budget resorts. The leaderboards regularly disagree with the magazine lists.
Media assets
Logo files in light and dark versions, founder headshot, and company boilerplate, free to use in coverage of Top 22 Picks.
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