The toughest course in the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA metro area is Glenmaura National Golf Course, at slope 149 — ahead of Ridge Trail at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club at slope 146 and Trail Blue at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club at slope 144.
All 25 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.
Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA 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 25 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 22 courses with a USGA course rating for its men’s tees
| # | Course | Hardest from the tips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Glenmaura National Golf Course | rating 75.4 |
| 1 | Huntsville Golf Club | rating 75.4 |
| 3 | Old at Country Club of Scranton The | rating 74.9 |
| 3 | South at Country Club of Scranton The | rating 74.9 |
| 5 | Blue Ridge at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club | rating 74.8 |
| 6 | Trail Blue at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club | rating 74.5 |
| 7 | Ridge Trail at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club | rating 74.3 |
| 8 | Eagle Rock Golf Ski Resort | rating 73.2 |
| 8 | North at Country Club of Scranton The | rating 73.2 |
| 10 | Glen Oak Country Club | rating 72.6 |
| 11 | Fox Hill Country Club | rating 72.0 |
| 12 | Stone Hedge Country Club | rating 71.9 |
| 13 | Irem Country Club | rating 71.7 |
| 14 | Sand Springs Golf Course | rating 71.3 |
| 15 | Wyoming Valley Country Club | rating 71.2 |
| 16 | Valley Country Club | rating 70.0 |
| 17 | Shadowbrook Inn Resort | rating 68.7 |
| 17 | Summit Hills Golf Club | rating 68.7 |
| 19 | Emanon Country Club | rating 68.4 |
| 20 | Skyline Public Golf Course | rating 66.0 |
| 21 | Four Seasons Golf Club | rating 64.5 |
| 22 | Eagle Rock Golf Ski Resort Executive Course | rating 62.0 |
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 35 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 32 courses with two or more tee sets of different lengths
| # | Course | Widest tee spread |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntsville Golf Club | 3,130 yds between tees |
| 2 | Glenmaura National Golf Course | 2,412 yds between tees |
| 3 | Ridge Trail at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club | 2,356 yds between tees |
| 4 | Trail Blue at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club | 2,282 yds between tees |
| 5 | Blue Ridge at Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club | 2,188 yds between tees |
| 6 | Sand Springs Golf Course | 1,955 yds between tees |
| 7 | Mountain Laurel Golf Club | 1,819 yds between tees |
| 8 | Old at Country Club of Scranton The | 1,798 yds between tees |
| 9 | Glen Oak Country Club | 1,779 yds between tees |
| 10 | Eagle Rock Golf Ski Resort | 1,764 yds between tees |
| 11 | South at Country Club of Scranton The | 1,749 yds between tees |
| 12 | North at Country Club of Scranton The | 1,709 yds between tees |
| 13 | Stone Hedge Country Club | 1,598 yds between tees |
| 14 | Edgewood in the Pines | 1,456 yds between tees |
| 15 | Four Seasons Golf Club | 1,388 yds between tees |
| 16 | Irem Country Club | 1,351 yds between tees |
| 17 | Fox Hill Country Club | 1,324 yds between tees |
| 18 | Sugarloaf Golf Club | 1,267 yds between tees |
| 19 | Shadowbrook Inn Resort | 1,203 yds between tees |
| 20 | Valley Country Club | 1,112 yds between tees |
| 21 | Wyoming Valley Country Club | 917 yds between tees |
| 22 | Skyline Public Golf Course | 836 yds between tees |
| 23 | Sleepy Hollow Golf Course | 810 yds between tees |
| 24 | Eighteen Hole at Pine Hills Country Club | 751 yds between tees |
| 25 | Applewood Golf Course | 667 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 31 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
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.