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The toughest course in the Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL metro area is Regatta Bay Golf Yacht Club, at slope 147 — ahead of Burnt Pine at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort at slope 144 and Windswept Dunes Golf Course at slope 143.

All 13 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.

18
courses
1
state
6
rankings

Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL 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 13 courses with a USGA slope rating for its men’s tees

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 13 courses with a USGA course rating for its men’s tees

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

— all 18 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

— all 18 courses with two or more tee sets of different lengths
# Course Widest tee spread
1 Baytowne at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort 3,802 yds between tees
2 Bonifay Country Club Pensacola Destin 3,037 yds between tees
3 Regatta Bay Golf Yacht Club 2,702 yds between tees
4 Windswept Dunes Golf Course 2,579 yds between tees
5 Santa Rosa Golf Beach Club 2,538 yds between tees
6 Eagle Springs Golf Course 2,488 yds between tees
7 Eglin Afb Golf Course Falcon 2,377 yds between tees
8 Gator Lakes Golf Course 2,187 yds between tees
9 The Links Golf Club 2,015 yds between tees
10 Rocky Bayou Country Club 1,961 yds between tees
11 Raven at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort 1,871 yds between tees
12 Burnt Pine at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort 1,865 yds between tees
13 Indian Bayou Golf Club 1,852 yds between tees
14 Links at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort 1,813 yds between tees
15 Blackstone Golf Course 1,654 yds between tees
16 Eglin Afb Golf Course Eagle 1,599 yds between tees
17 Camp Creek Golf Club 1,324 yds between tees
18 The Golf Garden of Destin 686 yds between tees

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

— all 12 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

— all 18 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.