The longest private course in the country is Promontory Club Painted Valley Golf Course (UT), at 8,098 yards — ahead of Castle Pines Golf Club (CO) at 8,054 yards and Cornerstone Club (CO) at 7,945 yards.
All 2,954 private 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.
Member-only clubs, as published on the record. They are ranked here so that a private club is measured against other private clubs — and so that the boards a visitor can actually act on are not filled with courses they cannot play.
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 3,026 private 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 | private courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18-hole regulation | 2,527 | 83.5% | |
| 9-hole regulation | 266 | 8.8% | |
| Executive / short regulation | 100 | 3.3% | |
| Par-3 | 55 | 1.8% | |
| 27 holes or more | 16 | 0.5% | |
| Par or holes not stated | 62 | 2.0% |
Longest
— the top 25 of 2,954 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 2,300 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 2,143 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 2,885 courses with two or more tee sets of different lengths
| # | Course | State | Widest tee spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Promontory Club Dye Canyon Golf Course | UT | 5,880 yds between tees |
| 2 | Tpc Summerlin | NV | 5,060 yds between tees |
| 3 | Doublegate Country Club | GA | 4,846 yds between tees |
| 4 | Piedmont Driving Club | GA | 4,813 yds between tees |
| 5 | Martis Camp Club | CA | 4,806 yds between tees |
| 6 | Dalhousie Golf Club | MO | 4,721 yds between tees |
| 7 | Nashawtuc Country Club | MA | 4,697 yds between tees |
| 8 | The Reserve at Lake Keowee | SC | 4,648 yds between tees |
| 9 | The Woodlands Golf & Country Club | SC | 4,585 yds between tees |
| 10 | TPC Twin Cities | WI | 4,508 yds between tees |
| 11 | Currahee Club | GA | 4,433 yds between tees |
| 12 | Owensboro Country Club | KY | 4,376 yds between tees |
| 13 | Hammock Dunes Rees Jones Creek Course | FL | 4,350 yds between tees |
| 14 | TPC Michigan | OH | 4,180 yds between tees |
| 15 | Knickerbocker Country Club | NJ | 4,102 yds between tees |
| 16 | The Vintage Club Mountain Course | CA | 4,067 yds between tees |
| 17 | Fairview Country Club | CT | 4,060 yds between tees |
| 18 | The Federal Club | VA | 4,029 yds between tees |
| 19 | Royal Oaks Country Club | WA | 4,021 yds between tees |
| 20 | Lake Valley Golf Club | CO | 3,995 yds between tees |
| 21 | Minneapolis Golf Club | MN | 3,963 yds between tees |
| 22 | Hillcrest Country Club | CA | 3,923 yds between tees |
| 23 | Owatonna Country Club | MN | 3,829 yds between tees |
| 24 | Northland Country Club | MN | 3,805 yds between tees |
| 25 | El Caballero Country Club | CA | 3,776 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 2,418 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 3,026 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 — 2,418 of the 3,026 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 | private courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1870s | 1 | 0.0% | |
| 1880s | 11 | 0.5% | |
| 1890s | 106 | 4.4% | |
| 1900s | 102 | 4.2% | |
| 1910s | 207 | 8.6% | |
| 1920s | 398 | 16.5% | |
| 1930s | 48 | 2.0% | |
| 1940s | 55 | 2.3% | |
| 1950s | 162 | 6.7% | |
| 1960s | 313 | 12.9% | |
| 1970s | 198 | 8.2% | |
| 1980s | 231 | 9.6% | |
| 1990s | 293 | 12.1% | |
| 2000s | 247 | 10.2% | |
| 2010s | 22 | 0.9% | |
| 2020s | 24 | 1.0% |
Where they are
The 12 states with the most, of 49 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 | private courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 340 | 11.2% | |
| California | 272 | 9.0% | |
| Pennsylvania | 194 | 6.4% | |
| New York | 186 | 6.1% | |
| Georgia | 148 | 4.9% | |
| North Carolina | 146 | 4.8% | |
| New Jersey | 126 | 4.2% | |
| Virginia | 117 | 3.9% | |
| Illinois | 116 | 3.8% | |
| Ohio | 110 | 3.6% | |
| Massachusetts | 107 | 3.5% | |
| South Carolina | 95 | 3.1% |
37 more states have at least one and are not shown here. Every one of them is in the course search.