The longest public-access course in the country is Raindance National (CO), at 8,463 yards — ahead of Dragonfly Golf Club (CA) at 8,073 yards and Antler Creek Golf Course (CO) at 8,058 yards.
All 7,004 public-access 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.
The public, municipal, resort and semi-private courses together — everything a visitor can book without knowing a member. It overlaps the four cuts below it on purpose: it is the field most readers actually want, and a course sits in it as well as in its own type, never instead of it.
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 7,274 public-access 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 | public-access courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18-hole regulation | 4,989 | 68.6% | |
| 9-hole regulation | 1,292 | 17.8% | |
| Executive / short regulation | 486 | 6.7% | |
| Par-3 | 254 | 3.5% | |
| 27 holes or more | 23 | 0.3% | |
| Par or holes not stated | 230 | 3.2% |
Longest
— the top 25 of 7,004 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 4,936 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 4,145 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 6,653 courses with two or more tee sets of different lengths
| # | Course | State | Widest tee spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eagle Crest Golf Club | NY | 6,288 yds between tees |
| 2 | Juday Creek Golf Course | IN | 5,860 yds between tees |
| 3 | The Home Course | WA | 5,185 yds between tees |
| 4 | Suncadia Resort Rope Rider Course | WA | 5,141 yds between tees |
| 5 | Jekyll Island Golf Club Pine Lakes Course | GA | 4,914 yds between tees |
| 6 | Green Valley Ranch Golf Club | CO | 4,884 yds between tees |
| 7 | Oak Knoll Golf Course | IN | 4,830 yds between tees |
| 8 | Coosaw Creek Country Club | SC | 4,739 yds between tees |
| 9 | Oaks Golf Club The | WI | 4,627 yds between tees |
| 10 | The Arnold Palmer Signature Course at Stonewall Resort | WV | 4,581 yds between tees |
| 11 | Mozingo Lake Recreation Watson 9 Course | MO | 4,564 yds between tees |
| 12 | Katke Golf Course | MI | 4,546 yds between tees |
| 13 | Ballwin Golf Course & Event Center | MO | 4,516 yds between tees |
| 14 | Elbel Golf Course | IN | 4,460 yds between tees |
| 15 | Bartram Trail Golf Club | GA | 4,388 yds between tees |
| 16 | Dragonfly Golf Club | CA | 4,382 yds between tees |
| 16 | Keystone Ranch Golf Course | CO | 4,382 yds between tees |
| 18 | Arcade Creek at Haggin Oaks Golf Course | CA | 4,352 yds between tees |
| 19 | Golf at Province Lake | ME | 4,338 yds between tees |
| 20 | The River Course at Keystone | CO | 4,325 yds between tees |
| 21 | Timberstone Golf Course | ID | 4,301 yds between tees |
| 22 | Links of Sandpiper | FL | 4,286 yds between tees |
| 23 | Longleaf Golf & Family Club | NC | 4,261 yds between tees |
| 24 | Bayou Bend Golf | LA | 4,260 yds between tees |
| 25 | Victory Links Golf Course | MN | 4,214 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 5,526 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 7,274 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 — 5,526 of the 7,274 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 | public-access courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1800s | 1 | 0.0% | |
| 1810s | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 1820s | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 1830s | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 1840s | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 1850s | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 1860s | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 1870s | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 1880s | 8 | 0.1% | |
| 1890s | 59 | 1.1% | |
| 1900s | 52 | 0.9% | |
| 1910s | 85 | 1.5% | |
| 1920s | 490 | 8.9% | |
| 1930s | 202 | 3.7% | |
| 1940s | 106 | 1.9% | |
| 1950s | 320 | 5.8% | |
| 1960s | 1,016 | 18.4% | |
| 1970s | 605 | 10.9% | |
| 1980s | 493 | 8.9% | |
| 1990s | 1,253 | 22.7% | |
| 2000s | 712 | 12.9% | |
| 2010s | 95 | 1.7% | |
| 2020s | 29 | 0.5% |
Where they are
The 12 states with the most, of 51 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 | public-access courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan | 481 | 6.6% | |
| New York | 478 | 6.6% | |
| California | 461 | 6.3% | |
| Florida | 429 | 5.9% | |
| Pennsylvania | 414 | 5.7% | |
| North Carolina | 330 | 4.5% | |
| Illinois | 305 | 4.2% | |
| Ohio | 276 | 3.8% | |
| Iowa | 238 | 3.3% | |
| Wisconsin | 229 | 3.1% | |
| Georgia | 225 | 3.1% | |
| Massachusetts | 221 | 3.0% |
39 more states have at least one and are not shown here. Every one of them is in the course search.