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The toughest course in the Urban Honolulu, HI metro area is Waialae Country Club, at slope 140 — ahead of Ko Olina Golf Club at slope 138 and Royal Hawaiian Golf Club at slope 138.

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.

36
courses
1
state
6
rankings

Urban Honolulu, HI 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 25 courses with a USGA course rating for its men’s tees

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 Widest tee spread
1 Hoakalei Country Club at Ocean Pointe 2,378 yds between tees
2 Turtle Bay Resort Arnold Palmer Course 2,348 yds between tees
3 Royal Kunia Country Club 2,062 yds between tees
4 Hawaii Prince Golf Club B C Nines 2,050 yds between tees
5 Royal Hawaiian Golf Club 2,026 yds between tees
6 Hawaii Prince Golf Club C A Nines 1,866 yds between tees
7 Hawaii Prince Golf Club A B Nines 1,842 yds between tees
8 360 Ewa Beach Country Club 1,817 yds between tees
9 Navy Marine Golf Course 1,721 yds between tees
10 Ko Olina Golf Club 1,668 yds between tees
11 Naval Air Station Barbers Point Golf Course 1,644 yds between tees
12 Mid Pacific Country Club 1,599 yds between tees
13 Kapolei Golf Club 1,511 yds between tees
14 Waikele Country Club 1,437 yds between tees
15 West Loch Municipal Golf Course 1,369 yds between tees
16 Ewa Villages Golf Course 1,364 yds between tees
17 Honolulu Country Club 1,283 yds between tees
18 Pearl at Kalauao 1,251 yds between tees
19 Mamala Bay Golf Course 1,193 yds between tees
20 Mililani Golf Club 1,189 yds between tees
21 Waialae Country Club 1,058 yds between tees
22 Bay View Golf Course 1,000 yds between tees
23 Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course 943 yds between tees
24 Hawaii Country Club 941 yds between tees
25 Hawaii Kai Golf Course 918 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 27 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.