The toughest course in the Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA metro area is Sherwood Country Club, at slope 144 — ahead of Wood Ranch Golf Club at slope 142 and Lakes Valley at North Ranch Country Club at slope 140.
All 22 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.
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA 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 22 courses with a USGA slope rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | Toughest test |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sherwood Country Club | slope 144 |
| 2 | Wood Ranch Golf Club | slope 142 |
| 3 | Lakes Valley at North Ranch Country Club | slope 140 |
| 4 | Oaks Lakes at North Ranch Country Club | slope 139 |
| 5 | Saticoy Country Club | slope 138 |
| 5 | Valley Oaks at North Ranch Country Club | slope 138 |
| 7 | Rustic Canyon Golf Course | slope 135 |
| 7 | Spanish Hills Golf Country Club | slope 135 |
| 9 | River Ridge Golf Club The Victoria Lakes Course | slope 134 |
| 10 | Sterling Hills Golf Club | slope 133 |
| 11 | Camarillo Springs Golf Course | slope 132 |
| 11 | Tierra Rejada Golf Club | slope 132 |
| 13 | Ojai Valley Inn | slope 131 |
| 14 | River Ridge Golf Club The Vineyard Course | slope 129 |
| 14 | Sunset Hills Country Club | slope 129 |
| 16 | Las Posas Country Club | slope 128 |
| 16 | Soule Park Golf Club | slope 128 |
| 18 | Los Robles Greens Golf Course | slope 126 |
| 18 | Olivas Links Golf Course | slope 126 |
| 20 | Westlake Golf Course | slope 105 |
| 21 | Sherwood Lakes Club | slope 104 |
| 22 | Leisure Village Golf Club | slope 89 |
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 20 courses with a USGA course rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | Hardest from the tips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sherwood Country Club | rating 75.4 |
| 2 | Oaks Lakes at North Ranch Country Club | rating 75.0 |
| 3 | Lakes Valley at North Ranch Country Club | rating 74.9 |
| 4 | Saticoy Country Club | rating 74.6 |
| 4 | Wood Ranch Golf Club | rating 74.6 |
| 6 | River Ridge Golf Club The Victoria Lakes Course | rating 74.0 |
| 7 | Rustic Canyon Golf Course | rating 73.9 |
| 7 | Valley Oaks at North Ranch Country Club | rating 73.9 |
| 9 | Tierra Rejada Golf Club | rating 73.4 |
| 10 | Sterling Hills Golf Club | rating 73.3 |
| 11 | Camarillo Springs Golf Course | rating 73.2 |
| 12 | Soule Park Golf Club | rating 73.0 |
| 13 | Olivas Links Golf Course | rating 72.7 |
| 14 | River Ridge Golf Club The Vineyard Course | rating 72.6 |
| 14 | Sunset Hills Country Club | rating 72.6 |
| 16 | Spanish Hills Golf Country Club | rating 72.4 |
| 17 | Las Posas Country Club | rating 71.4 |
| 18 | Ojai Valley Inn | rating 71.0 |
| 19 | Los Robles Greens Golf Course | rating 70.3 |
| 20 | Westlake Golf Course | rating 62.7 |
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 26 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 25 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
— all 23 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 26 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.