The toughest course in the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA combined area is Rock Harbor Golf Course Boulder, at slope 151 — ahead of Potomac Shores Golf Club at slope 150 and Trump National Golf Club Washington D C River Course at slope 148.
All 108 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.
Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA is a combined statistical area as the U.S. Office of Management and Budget delineates it, crossing Washington, DC and Maryland and Pennsylvania and Virginia and West Virginia — 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
— the top 25 of 108 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
— the top 25 of 97 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 135 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 134 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
— the top 25 of 117 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 136 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.