The toughest course in the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR metro area is Chenal Country Club Bear Den Mountain Course, at slope 143 — ahead of Chenal Country Club Founders Course at slope 142 and Maumelle Country Club at slope 138.
All 20 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.
Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR 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 20 courses with a USGA slope rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | Toughest test |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chenal Country Club Bear Den Mountain Course | slope 143 |
| 2 | Chenal Country Club Founders Course | slope 142 |
| 3 | Maumelle Country Club | slope 138 |
| 4 | The First Tee of Central Arkansas Chairmans Course | slope 137 |
| 5 | Centennial Valley Golf Course | slope 133 |
| 5 | Country Club of Little Rock | slope 133 |
| 5 | The Greens at North Hills | slope 133 |
| 8 | Eagle Hill Golf Athletic Club | slope 130 |
| 9 | Championship at Rebsamen Park Golf Course | slope 129 |
| 10 | Championship at Burns Park Golf Course | slope 128 |
| 10 | The Country Club of Arkansas | slope 128 |
| 12 | Rolling Hills Country Club | slope 126 |
| 13 | Hurricane Golf Country Club | slope 124 |
| 14 | Deer Run Golf Course | slope 123 |
| 15 | Lakeview Golf Country Club | slope 121 |
| 16 | Conway Country Club | slope 120 |
| 17 | Lonoke Golf Course | slope 115 |
| 18 | Pine Valley Golf Course | slope 109 |
| 19 | Hickory Creek Golf Course | slope 103 |
| 20 | Camp Robinson Duffers Club | slope 102 |
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 18 courses with a USGA course rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | Hardest from the tips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chenal Country Club Bear Den Mountain Course | rating 75.9 |
| 2 | Chenal Country Club Founders Course | rating 75.6 |
| 3 | Maumelle Country Club | rating 74.9 |
| 4 | Country Club of Little Rock | rating 73.9 |
| 5 | Centennial Valley Golf Course | rating 73.8 |
| 5 | Eagle Hill Golf Athletic Club | rating 73.8 |
| 7 | Hurricane Golf Country Club | rating 73.5 |
| 8 | Lakeview Golf Country Club | rating 72.5 |
| 8 | The Greens at North Hills | rating 72.5 |
| 10 | Championship at Burns Park Golf Course | rating 72.1 |
| 10 | Championship at Rebsamen Park Golf Course | rating 72.1 |
| 12 | Deer Run Golf Course | rating 71.8 |
| 13 | The Country Club of Arkansas | rating 71.6 |
| 14 | Rolling Hills Country Club | rating 71.0 |
| 15 | Lonoke Golf Course | rating 70.4 |
| 16 | Conway Country Club | rating 70.3 |
| 17 | Pine Valley Golf Course | rating 65.4 |
| 18 | Hickory Creek Golf Course | rating 62.6 |
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 31 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 30 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 29 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 31 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.