TheGrint HQ
7 minutes
Updated
October 23, 2026
The hardest golf courses that golfers also rank among the best include Erin Hills, Kiawah Island's Ocean Course, Whistling Straits, Pinehurst No. 2, TPC Sawgrass, Bethpage Black and Pine Valley. Each plays harder than 99% of the courses rated on TheGrint, based on golfers' scores, and each is on TheGrint's 2026 Top 100.
In all, 83 courses on the five 2026 Top 100 lists play harder than 99% of rated courses. This post lists them, shows how much harder golfers' favorite courses play than the rest, and points out the top-ranked courses that play easy.
It covers courses on the Top 100 lists only, not every course in the world. You can check how hard any course plays in TheGrint's golf course directory.
The hardest public golf courses in America on TheGrint's 2026 Top 100 are Erin Hills, the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island and the Straits Course at Whistling Straits, Nos. 1 to 3 on the U.S. Public list. All three play harder than 99% of rated courses, along with 20 more on the list:
| U.S. Public rank | Course | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Erin Hills | Erin, WI |
| 2 | Kiawah Island: The Ocean Course | Johns Island, SC |
| 3 | Whistling Straits: Straits | Sheboygan, WI |
| 5 | Shadow Creek | North Las Vegas, NV |
| 6 | Pinehurst Resort: No. 2 | Pinehurst, NC |
| 7 | TPC Sawgrass: Stadium Course | Ponte Vedra Beach, FL |
| 8 | Bethpage State Park: Black | Farmingdale, NY |
| 18 | Spyglass Hill | Pebble Beach, CA |
| 20 | French Lick Resort: The Pete Dye Course | West Baden Springs, IN |
| 22 | Edgewood Tahoe | Stateline, NV |
| 29 | SentryWorld | Stevens Point, WI |
| 30 | Red Sky Golf Club: Norman Course | Wolcott, CO |
| 32 | Blackwolf Run: River | Kohler, WI |
| 35 | Whistling Straits: Irish | Sheboygan, WI |
| 42 | Harbour Town Golf Links | Hilton Head Island, SC |
| 43 | Sea Island: Seaside | St. Simons Island, GA |
| 52 | Paako Ridge: 1 & 2 | Sandia Park, NM |
| 66 | Sunriver Resort: Crosswater | Sunriver, OR |
| 67 | Deacon's Lodge | Pequot Lakes, MN |
| 72 | Sand Valley: The Lido | Nekoosa, WI |
| 79 | TPC Deere Run | Silvis, IL |
| 90 | Blackwolf Run: Meadow Valleys | Kohler, WI |
| 94 | Old Greenwood | Truckee, CA |
Wisconsin has seven of the 23, more than any other state: Erin Hills, both Whistling Straits courses, both Blackwolf Run courses, SentryWorld and the Lido at Sand Valley.
The U.S. Private list has even more: 35 courses play harder than 99% of rated courses, led by Pine Valley at No. 3. Private courses need a member invitation, so check access on each course's page.
Outside the U.S., the hardest top-ranked courses on TheGrint include Royal County Down, Trump International Golf Links in Scotland and Royal Troon in the UK and Ireland, and Finca Cortesín in Spain on the World list. 25 courses across the World, UK & Ireland and Canada lists play harder than 99% of rated courses:
The World list covers courses outside the U.S., Canada, the UK and Ireland, which have lists of their own. The full lists are on TheGrint Top 100.
Yes. Golfers' favorite courses are overwhelmingly hard ones: 280 of the 493 courses on the 2026 lists with a difficulty figure (57%) play harder than at least 90% of rated courses on TheGrint. The median Top 100 course plays harder than 92% of rated courses.
Many of the hardest courses on the lists have also hosted major championships, including Erin Hills, the Ocean Course, Whistling Straits, Pinehurst No. 2 and Bethpage Black.
The easiest-playing course on TheGrint's 2026 Top 100 is the 13-hole Bandon Preserve par-3 course in Oregon. It plays harder than only 6% of rated courses and still ranks No. 82 on the U.S. Public list.
Short courses and wide, playable layouts can win golfers over too.
TheGrint Difficulty shows how hard a course plays compared with every other rated course on TheGrint, based on the scores golfers log there. It's a percentile, so a course that plays "harder than 99%" is in the hardest 1%.
TheGrint Difficulty is not the Slope Rating™ that the USGA® and authorized golf associations assign to each set of tees. It comes from how golfers actually score on the course. The figure tops out at 99%, so it doesn't separate courses within the hardest 1%. That's why 83 courses share the top mark and this post doesn't name a single hardest course.
How we counted: TheGrint Difficulty figures, ranks and locations come from the five 2026 Top 100 list pages and course pages on October 23, 2026. 493 of the 497 listed courses showed a difficulty figure. Courses not on a Top 100 list aren't included.
TheGrint Top 100 is built from what golfers do on TheGrint: their course ratings, the rounds they play, their personal course rankings and their head-to-head picks in the Course Ranking Game, along with other course-engagement signals.
For more on the lists, see how TheGrint Top 100 works.
Look the course up in TheGrint's golf course directory: every course page shows TheGrint Difficulty, TheGrint Rating and the full scorecard for every set of tees, free.
There isn't one clear answer. On TheGrint, 58 courses on the 2026 U.S. Public and U.S. Private Top 100 lists play harder than 99% of rated courses, including Erin Hills, Kiawah Island's Ocean Course, Bethpage Black, TPC Sawgrass, Pinehurst No. 2 and Pine Valley. TheGrint Difficulty doesn't rank courses within that top 1%.
TheGrint Difficulty shows how hard a course plays compared with every other rated course on TheGrint, based on the scores golfers log there. It is a percentile, so a course that plays harder than 99% of rated courses is in the hardest 1%. It is not the same as the Slope Rating.
TheGrint Rating is TheGrint's score for a golf course, out of 100. It combines golfers' ratings of the course with where the course places in golfers' personal rankings from the Course Ranking Game. It is not the Course Rating™ that the USGA and authorized golf associations assign to each set of tees.
Mostly, yes. In TheGrint's 2026 Top 100, 57% of courses play harder than at least 90% of rated courses on TheGrint, and the typical Top 100 course plays harder than 92%. A few favorites play easy, such as the Bandon Preserve par-3 course, which ranks No. 82 on the U.S. Public list.
No single course can be named from TheGrint's data. Across all five 2026 Top 100 lists, 83 courses play harder than 99% of rated courses on TheGrint. Outside the U.S., they include Royal County Down and Royal Troon in the UK and Ireland, Finca Cortesín in Spain and Twin Dolphin in Mexico.
Check the scorecard, pick your tees and keep score with free GPS distances in TheGrint, then rank the course in the Course Ranking Game when you're done. Get started with TheGrint.
Course Rating™ and Slope Rating™ are owned or licensed by the United States Golf Association® (USGA®) and/or The R&A. All rights reserved.
