The toughest course in the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro 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 21 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.
Memphis, TN-MS-AR is a metro 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 21 courses with a USGA slope rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | State | Toughest test |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tpc Southwind | TN | slope 145 |
| 2 | Brownstone Country Club Resort | AR | slope 143 |
| 3 | Memphis Country Club The | TN | slope 138 |
| 4 | Chickasaw Country Club | TN | slope 134 |
| 5 | Glen Eagle Golf Course | TN | slope 133 |
| 6 | East at Windyke Country Club | TN | slope 131 |
| 6 | Memphis National Golf Club Legends Course | TN | slope 131 |
| 8 | Memphis Athletic Ministries Park Golf Course | TN | slope 129 |
| 9 | Ridgeway Country Club | TN | slope 128 |
| 10 | Wedgewood Golf Course | MS | slope 127 |
| 11 | West at Windyke Country Club | TN | slope 126 |
| 12 | North Creek Golf Club | MS | slope 125 |
| 13 | Memphis National Golf Club Champions Course | TN | slope 123 |
| 14 | The Links at Davy Crockett | TN | slope 122 |
| 15 | Forest Hill Golf Course | TN | slope 121 |
| 16 | The Links at Galloway | TN | slope 116 |
| 17 | The Links at Fox Meadows | TN | slope 115 |
| 18 | Orgill Golf Course | TN | slope 114 |
| 19 | Covington Country Club | TN | slope 112 |
| 20 | The Links at Audubon | TN | slope 104 |
| 21 | Southaven Golf Center | MS | slope 92 |
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 19 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 | North Creek Golf Club | MS | rating 71.2 |
| 14 | The Links at Davy Crockett | TN | rating 70.3 |
| 15 | The Links at Audubon | TN | rating 70.1 |
| 16 | The Links at Fox Meadows | TN | rating 70.0 |
| 17 | Orgill Golf Course | TN | rating 69.5 |
| 18 | The Links at Galloway | TN | rating 69.0 |
| 19 | 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 36 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 35 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
— all 24 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 36 courses with a coordinate we could sample
| # | Course | State | Highest above sea level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kirkwood National Golf Club | MS | 536 ft |
| 2 | Forest Hill Golf Course | TN | 382 ft |
| 3 | Timber Truss Golf Course | MS | 380 ft |
| 4 | Olive Branch Country Club | MS | 375 ft |
| 5 | Cherokee Valley Golf Club | MS | 371 ft |
| 6 | Southaven Golf Center | MS | 366 ft |
| 7 | Orgill Golf Course | TN | 365 ft |
| 8 | Tpc Southwind | TN | 360 ft |
| 9 | Irene Golf & Country Club | TN | 359 ft |
| 10 | Wedgewood Golf Course | MS | 356 ft |
| 11 | Ridgeway Country Club | TN | 351 ft |
| 12 | Hills at Hernando Country Club | MS | 346 ft |
| 13 | West at Windyke Country Club | TN | 327 ft |
| 14 | Memphis National Golf Club Legends Course | TN | 317 ft |
| 15 | Back Acres Country Club | MS | 316 ft |
| 16 | The Links at Audubon | TN | 309 ft |
| 16 | The Links at Whitehaven | TN | 309 ft |
| 18 | East at Windyke Country Club | TN | 307 ft |
| 19 | Covington Country Club | TN | 305 ft |
| 20 | Memphis Country Club The | TN | 299 ft |
| 20 | The Links at Galloway | TN | 299 ft |
| 22 | Memphis National Golf Club Champions Course | TN | 298 ft |
| 23 | The Links at Davy Crockett | TN | 297 ft |
| 24 | Germantown Country Club | TN | 294 ft |
| 25 | The Links at Riverside | TN | 293 ft |
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.