The longest municipal course in the country is Rochelle Ranch Golf Course (WY), at 7,925 yards — ahead of Walnut Creek Golf Preserve (CO) at 7,563 yards and Murphy Creek Golf Course (CO) at 7,548 yards.
All 268 municipal courses with a published scorecard are ranked below, along with 5 more lists: toughest test, hardest from the tips, widest tee spread, oldest, highest above sea level.
Courses a city, county or other public body owns, as published on the record rather than inferred from the name. Municipal golf is where most Americans learn the game, and it is priced and built differently from the rest of the corpus.
Each list counts only the courses that publish that figure, so the totals differ between them. Slope and course rating measure difficulty, not quality. How this is worked out.
What kind of golf this is
Every one of the 280 municipal courses by course class, read off the hole count and par each record publishes. Nothing is inferred from a name; a course publishing neither figure is its own row rather than a course quietly missing from the count.
| Course class | municipal courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18-hole regulation | 162 | 57.9% | |
| 9-hole regulation | 59 | 21.1% | |
| Executive / short regulation | 28 | 10.0% | |
| Par-3 | 17 | 6.1% | |
| Par or holes not stated | 14 | 5.0% |
Longest
— the top 25 of 268 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.
Toughest test
— the top 25 of 182 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 146 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.
Widest tee spread
— the top 25 of 249 courses with two or more tee sets of different lengths
| # | Course | State | Widest tee spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elbel Golf Course | IN | 4,460 yds between tees |
| 2 | Airport Golf Course | OH | 3,629 yds between tees |
| 3 | North Palm Beach Country Club | FL | 3,468 yds between tees |
| 4 | Roosevelt Municipal Golf Course | CA | 3,351 yds between tees |
| 5 | Waverly Municipal Golf Course | IA | 3,279 yds between tees |
| 6 | Wasioto Winds at Pine Mountain State Park Golf Course | KY | 2,979 yds between tees |
| 7 | Auburn Hills Golf Course | KS | 2,905 yds between tees |
| 8 | King Rail Reserve Golf Course | MA | 2,835 yds between tees |
| 9 | En Joie Golf Course | NY | 2,510 yds between tees |
| 10 | River Ridge Golf Club The Vineyard Course | CA | 2,495 yds between tees |
| 11 | Hulman Links Golf Course | IN | 2,415 yds between tees |
| 12 | Stonebridge Golf Club Creekside Sunrise Course | UT | 2,393 yds between tees |
| 13 | Stonebridge Golf Club Sagebrush Creekside Course | UT | 2,390 yds between tees |
| 14 | Thunder Bayou Golf Links | AR | 2,381 yds between tees |
| 15 | Chester Washington Golf Course | CA | 2,380 yds between tees |
| 16 | Walnut Creek Golf Preserve | CO | 2,336 yds between tees |
| 17 | The Greens at North Hills | AR | 2,296 yds between tees |
| 18 | Murphy Creek Golf Course | CO | 2,213 yds between tees |
| 19 | Stonebridge Golf Club Sunrise Sagebrush Course | UT | 2,187 yds between tees |
| 20 | Berkshire Valley Golf Course | NJ | 2,163 yds between tees |
| 21 | Rochelle Ranch Golf Course | WY | 2,162 yds between tees |
| 22 | Fossil Trace Golf Club | CO | 2,117 yds between tees |
| 23 | Park Ridge Golf Course | FL | 2,109 yds between tees |
| 24 | Highlands of Elgin | IL | 2,099 yds between tees |
| 25 | Twin Lakes Oaks Course | VA | 2,063 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 217 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 280 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.
When they opened
Opening year by decade, where the record carries one — 217 of the 280 in this cut. 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.
| Decade opened | municipal courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1890s | 4 | 1.8% | |
| 1900s | 7 | 3.2% | |
| 1910s | 2 | 0.9% | |
| 1920s | 27 | 12.4% | |
| 1930s | 21 | 9.7% | |
| 1940s | 8 | 3.7% | |
| 1950s | 17 | 7.8% | |
| 1960s | 32 | 14.7% | |
| 1970s | 17 | 7.8% | |
| 1980s | 12 | 5.5% | |
| 1990s | 29 | 13.4% | |
| 2000s | 39 | 18.0% | |
| 2010s | 1 | 0.5% | |
| 2020s | 1 | 0.5% |
Where they are
The 12 states with the most, of 41 that have at least one. Each links to that state's own page, where its courses are ranked against the rest of the state rather than against this cut.
| State | municipal courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 43 | 15.4% | |
| California | 22 | 7.9% | |
| Florida | 15 | 5.4% | |
| Michigan | 14 | 5.0% | |
| Colorado | 13 | 4.6% | |
| Utah | 13 | 4.6% | |
| Wisconsin | 12 | 4.3% | |
| New Jersey | 11 | 3.9% | |
| Wyoming | 11 | 3.9% | |
| Virginia | 10 | 3.6% | |
| Illinois | 9 | 3.2% | |
| Massachusetts | 9 | 3.2% |
29 more states have at least one and are not shown here. Every one of them is in the course search.