The toughest course in the Albuquerque, NM metro area is Twin Warriors Golf Club, at slope 140 — ahead of Cheena Star Course at Santa Ana Golf Club at slope 135 and Canyon Club at slope 134.
All 18 courses in the area with a USGA slope rating for its men’s tees are ranked below, along with 5 more lists: hardest from the tips, longest, widest tee spread, oldest, highest above sea level.
Albuquerque, NM is a metro area as the U.S. Office of Management and Budget delineates it — the boundary is theirs, not ours. Each list counts only the courses in the area that publish that figure, so the totals differ between them. Slope and course rating measure difficulty, not quality — nothing here ranks how good a course is.
Toughest test
— all 18 courses with a USGA slope rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | Toughest test |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Twin Warriors Golf Club | slope 140 |
| 2 | Cheena Star Course at Santa Ana Golf Club | slope 135 |
| 3 | Canyon Club | slope 134 |
| 3 | Championship Golf Course at University of New Mexico | slope 134 |
| 3 | Isleta Eagle Golf Course Mesa Lakes Course | slope 134 |
| 3 | Tamaya Cheena Course at Santa Ana Golf Club | slope 134 |
| 7 | Arroyo Del Oso Golf Course Championship Course | slope 131 |
| 7 | Tamaya Star Course at Santa Ana Golf Club | slope 131 |
| 9 | Isleta Eagle Golf Course Lakes Arroyo Course | slope 130 |
| 10 | Sandia Golf Club | slope 129 |
| 11 | Isleta Eagle Golf Course Arroyo Mesa Course | slope 128 |
| 12 | Ladera Golf Course Championship Course | slope 123 |
| 13 | Albuquerque Country Club | slope 122 |
| 14 | Cochiti Golf Club | slope 121 |
| 15 | Los Alamos Golf Course | slope 120 |
| 16 | Arroyo Del Oso Golf Course Dam Nine Course | slope 117 |
| 16 | Los Altos Golf Course Los Altos Course | slope 117 |
| 18 | Puerto Del Sol Golf Course | slope 113 |
The highest USGA slope rating published for any of the men’s tee sets. Slope rates difficulty for a bogey golfer relative to a scratch golfer — a rated figure issued by the golf association, not an opinion about the course. Men’s ratings only, because a tee is rated separately for men and for women and the two scales do not compare; a course rated only for women is not in the running rather than converted.
Hardest from the tips
— all 16 courses with a USGA course rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | Hardest from the tips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sandia Golf Club | rating 75.5 |
| 2 | Twin Warriors Golf Club | rating 75.4 |
| 3 | Championship Golf Course at University of New Mexico | rating 75.2 |
| 4 | Isleta Eagle Golf Course Mesa Lakes Course | rating 75.1 |
| 4 | Tamaya Cheena Course at Santa Ana Golf Club | rating 75.1 |
| 6 | Cheena Star Course at Santa Ana Golf Club | rating 74.3 |
| 7 | Tamaya Star Course at Santa Ana Golf Club | rating 74.0 |
| 8 | Isleta Eagle Golf Course Arroyo Mesa Course | rating 73.8 |
| 9 | Isleta Eagle Golf Course Lakes Arroyo Course | rating 73.7 |
| 10 | Ladera Golf Course Championship Course | rating 73.0 |
| 11 | Arroyo Del Oso Golf Course Championship Course | rating 72.2 |
| 12 | Cochiti Golf Club | rating 71.7 |
| 13 | Canyon Club | rating 71.4 |
| 14 | Albuquerque Country Club | rating 70.8 |
| 15 | Los Altos Golf Course Los Altos Course | rating 69.9 |
| 16 | Los Alamos Golf Course | rating 69.7 |
The highest USGA course rating published for any of the men’s tee sets — the score a scratch golfer is expected to shoot. Men’s ratings only, for the same reason as slope: the men’s and women’s ratings of one tee are different measurements. It measures difficulty and nothing else; it is not a quality score and never orders these pages by how good a course is.
Longest
— the top 25 of 27 courses with a published scorecard
The longest tee set the course publishes, in yards from the tips. Compared against every course that publishes a scorecard — length is a measurement, not a verdict on the golf.
Widest tee spread
— the top 25 of 26 courses with two or more tee sets of different lengths
Yards between the longest and shortest published tee sets — how far the course moves to fit a different player. Courses publishing a single tee set are not in the running, because one set is an unmeasured spread rather than a narrow one.
Oldest
— the top 25 of 27 courses with an opening year
The year the course opened, as published. Ranked oldest first. An opening year is not a design credit and not a renovation date — a course that opened in 1921 and was rebuilt in 1998 still opened in 1921.
Highest above sea level
— the top 25 of 27 courses with a coordinate we could sample
Height above sea level at the course’s own published coordinate, sampled from the USGS 3DEP elevation model. THIS IS A FIGURE WE DERIVED, not one the course publishes — anybody can re-query the same public dataset at the same coordinate and get the same number, but no scorecard states it. Because every course carries a coordinate, this is the only board here whose field is nearly the whole database rather than the courses that publish a particular figure. Elevation changes how far a ball carries; it says nothing about whether a course is good.