The toughest course in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA metro area is Cordevalle Golf Club, at slope 146 — ahead of Golf Club at Boulder Ridge at slope 141 and Eagle Ridge Golf Club at slope 140.
All 24 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.
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, 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 24 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 | Hardest from the tips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cordevalle Golf Club | rating 76.3 |
| 2 | Golf Club at Boulder Ridge | rating 74.4 |
| 3 | Coyote Creek Golf Club The Tournament Course | rating 74.2 |
| 4 | Eagle Ridge Golf Club | rating 74.1 |
| 4 | Silver Creek Valley Country Club | rating 74.1 |
| 6 | Coyote Creek Golf Club The Valley Course | rating 74.0 |
| 6 | Shoreline Golf Links at Mountain View | rating 74.0 |
| 8 | Almaden Golf Country Club | rating 73.7 |
| 8 | Stanford Golf Club | rating 73.7 |
| 10 | Ridgemark Golf Country Club | rating 72.9 |
| 11 | Bay View Golf Club | rating 72.7 |
| 12 | Los Altos Golf Country Club | rating 72.3 |
| 13 | Eighteen Hole at Villages Golf Country Club | rating 72.2 |
| 14 | Eighteen Hole Regulation at Santa Teresa Golf Club | rating 72.1 |
| 15 | San Jose Municipal Golf Course | rating 71.8 |
| 16 | La Rinconada Country Club | rating 70.3 |
| 17 | Sunnyvale Municipal Golf Course | rating 70.1 |
| 18 | Gilroy Golf Course | rating 68.7 |
| 19 | Los Lagos Golf Course | rating 65.9 |
| 20 | Deep Cliff Golf Course | rating 58.9 |
| 21 | Sunken Gardens Golf Course | rating 56.8 |
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
— the top 25 of 26 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 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 28 courses with a coordinate we could sample
| # | Course | Highest above sea level |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saratoga Country Club | 619 ft |
| 2 | Silver Creek Valley Country Club | 594 ft |
| 3 | Spring Valley Golf Course | 571 ft |
| 4 | Eighteen Hole at Villages Golf Country Club | 533 ft |
| 5 | Ridgemark Golf Country Club | 499 ft |
| 6 | Pinnacle Hills Golf Course | 481 ft |
| 7 | Golf Club at Boulder Ridge | 471 ft |
| 8 | Bay View Golf Club | 437 ft |
| 9 | San Jose Country Club | 416 ft |
| 10 | Deep Cliff Golf Course | 357 ft |
| 11 | La Rinconada Country Club | 349 ft |
| 12 | Cordevalle Golf Club | 333 ft |
| 13 | Coyote Creek Golf Club The Tournament Course | 327 ft |
| 13 | Coyote Creek Golf Club The Valley Course | 327 ft |
| 15 | Eagle Ridge Golf Club | 325 ft |
| 16 | Almaden Golf Country Club | 313 ft |
| 17 | Blackberry Farm Golf Course | 295 ft |
| 18 | Los Altos Golf Country Club | 294 ft |
| 19 | Gilroy Golf Course | 267 ft |
| 20 | Eighteen Hole Regulation at Santa Teresa Golf Club | 219 ft |
| 21 | Stanford Golf Club | 212 ft |
| 22 | Los Lagos Golf Course | 146 ft |
| 23 | Pruneridge Golf Course | 111 ft |
| 24 | Sunken Gardens Golf Course | 98 ft |
| 25 | Rancho Del Pueblo Golf Course | 96 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.