This morning, Golfweek posted their Top 100 Public Courses list on their website. (A couple weeks ago, their Best You Can Play state-by-state list was posted.)
I'll comment now about only one course on the lists.
Hideout GC (Monticello, Utah) at #36 was a head scratcher. I played it for the first time a few days ago. Unfortunately, from a conditioning standpoint, it was almost unplayable. I was told in the pro shop that for the last two seasons they have had almost continuous irrigation system breakages. Consequently, there were many dry patches throughout the course, including the greens, and the grass throughout the course was kept pretty high to keep it from dying. I'm not a good judge of green speeds, but to give a qualitative guess, greens seemed to be stimping at about 4 or 5. This is all unfortunate, and I wish them well with the repairs. They are trying, as some of the tee boxes had been re-sodded. I think the course was well-conditioned before these irrigation system issues.
I can't say the conditions had no bearing on my evaluation of the architecture, but many of the holes seemed to me to be too narrow. Target-like in general, and if you don't hit your target exactly, you can't get a line on where the shot would end up because of surrounding foliage from the tee. According to the search function on this site, there hasn't been much discussion lately about this course, but earlier reviews, while mostly positive yet qualified, kind of support my opinion.
Not sure how anyone could say that this is a better course than Sand Hollow, which it is ranked above.
Hideout is ~ 5 hours from Albuquerque and Salt Lake City, but is only an hour away from Arches NP and 90 minutes from Canyonlands NP.