The longest semi-private course in the country is Raindance National (CO), at 8,463 yards — ahead of Tpc Colorado (CO) at 7,991 yards and Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech (VA) at 7,685 yards.
All 2,030 semi-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 clubs that also sell public tee times. A visitor can usually play; a member gets the tee sheet first.
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 2,089 semi-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 | semi-private courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18-hole regulation | 1,481 | 70.9% | |
| 9-hole regulation | 442 | 21.2% | |
| Executive / short regulation | 84 | 4.0% | |
| Par-3 | 23 | 1.1% | |
| 27 holes or more | 5 | 0.2% | |
| Par or holes not stated | 54 | 2.6% |
Longest
— the top 25 of 2,030 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 1,395 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 1,141 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 1,970 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 1,516 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 2,089 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 — 1,516 of the 2,089 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 | semi-private courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 5 | 0.3% | |
| 1890s | 18 | 1.2% | |
| 1900s | 20 | 1.3% | |
| 1910s | 47 | 3.1% | |
| 1920s | 185 | 12.2% | |
| 1930s | 55 | 3.6% | |
| 1940s | 35 | 2.3% | |
| 1950s | 110 | 7.3% | |
| 1960s | 289 | 19.1% | |
| 1970s | 145 | 9.6% | |
| 1980s | 119 | 7.8% | |
| 1990s | 294 | 19.4% | |
| 2000s | 146 | 9.6% | |
| 2010s | 33 | 2.2% | |
| 2020s | 15 | 1.0% |
Where they are
The 12 states with the most, of 50 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 | semi-private courses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 230 | 11.0% | |
| North Carolina | 159 | 7.6% | |
| South Carolina | 114 | 5.5% | |
| Iowa | 111 | 5.3% | |
| Georgia | 104 | 5.0% | |
| New York | 91 | 4.4% | |
| Pennsylvania | 78 | 3.7% | |
| Michigan | 75 | 3.6% | |
| Minnesota | 73 | 3.5% | |
| California | 67 | 3.2% | |
| Arkansas | 65 | 3.1% | |
| Massachusetts | 65 | 3.1% |
38 more states have at least one and are not shown here. Every one of them is in the course search.