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The toughest course in the Memphis-Clarksdale-Forrest City, TN-MS-AR combined area is Tpc Southwind, at slope 145 — ahead of Brownstone Country Club Resort at slope 143 and Memphis Country Club The at slope 138.

All 23 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.

38
courses
3
states
6
rankings

Memphis-Clarksdale-Forrest City, TN-MS-AR is a combined statistical area as the U.S. Office of Management and Budget delineates it, crossing Arkansas and Mississippi and Tennessee — 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 23 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 21 courses with a USGA course rating for its men’s tees
# Course State Hardest from the tips
1 Tpc Southwind TN rating 75.6
2 East at Windyke Country Club TN rating 75.2
3 Brownstone Country Club Resort AR rating 74.7
4 Ridgeway Country Club TN rating 74.6
5 Glen Eagle Golf Course TN rating 73.4
6 Memphis Country Club The TN rating 72.9
7 Wedgewood Golf Course MS rating 72.8
8 Chickasaw Country Club TN rating 72.5
9 West at Windyke Country Club TN rating 72.3
10 Memphis National Golf Club Legends Course TN rating 72.1
11 Memphis National Golf Club Champions Course TN rating 71.9
12 Forest Hill Golf Course TN rating 71.5
13 Clarksdale Country Club MS rating 71.2
13 North Creek Golf Club MS rating 71.2
15 The Links at Davy Crockett TN rating 70.3
16 The Links at Audubon TN rating 70.1
17 The Links at Fox Meadows TN rating 70.0
18 Orgill Golf Course TN rating 69.5
19 Forrest City Country Club AR rating 69.0
19 The Links at Galloway TN rating 69.0
21 Covington Country Club TN rating 68.1

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 38 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 37 courses with two or more tee sets of different lengths
# Course State Widest tee spread
1 Ridgeway Country Club TN 2,819 yds between tees
2 Cherokee Valley Golf Club MS 2,329 yds between tees
3 Olive Branch Country Club MS 2,262 yds between tees
4 Kirkwood National Golf Club MS 2,231 yds between tees
5 Brownstone Country Club Resort AR 2,189 yds between tees
6 Irene Golf & Country Club TN 2,165 yds between tees
7 Tpc Southwind TN 2,136 yds between tees
8 Germantown Country Club TN 2,029 yds between tees
9 River Bend Links MS 1,948 yds between tees
10 East at Windyke Country Club TN 1,941 yds between tees
11 Glen Eagle Golf Course TN 1,882 yds between tees
12 North Creek Golf Club MS 1,874 yds between tees
13 Forest Hill Golf Course TN 1,837 yds between tees
14 The Links at Audubon TN 1,729 yds between tees
15 Timber Truss Golf Course MS 1,718 yds between tees
16 Memphis National Golf Club Legends Course TN 1,662 yds between tees
17 Meadowbrook Country Club AR 1,630 yds between tees
18 Orgill Golf Course TN 1,612 yds between tees
19 West at Windyke Country Club TN 1,611 yds between tees
20 The Links at Galloway TN 1,560 yds between tees
21 Back Acres Country Club MS 1,555 yds between tees
22 The Links at Fox Meadows TN 1,450 yds between tees
23 Hills at Hernando Country Club MS 1,429 yds between tees
24 Memphis National Golf Club Champions Course TN 1,422 yds between tees
25 Covington Country Club TN 1,401 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

— the top 25 of 26 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 38 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.