Warning, the following post is long and all in black.
Just to get us back somewhere near the original topic.
I decided to do a little comparison among 81 of the top courses in Northern California/Reno area courses thanks to the NCGA Blue Book.
If you were to base your rating strictly on yardage as Dan has said they did at Golfweb you would say the hardest courses in the area are:
Montreux
Edgewood Tahoe
Ruby Hill
Arrowcreek - Challenge
Fall River Valley
Sierra Nevada Golf Ranch
Arrowcreek - Legend
Genoa Lakes
Diablo Grande Ranch
Pheasant Run
Seven of these are in the Sierras and the yardage is unrealistic. Since I don't feel like looking up the altitude and the number of par 4/5 holes I won't adjust for this.
If we look at the top 11 (tie for 10th) based on Course Rating we get:
Ruby Hill
Arrowcreek - Challenge
Edgewood Tahoe
Bayonet
Montreux
Diablo Grande Ranch
Coyote Creek Tournament
San Juan Oaks
Sierra Nevada Golf Ranch
Half Moon Bay Old
Sierra Nevada Golf Ranch
If we look based on Slope (difference between CR and BR) we get:
Mayacama
Spyglass
Diablo Grande Legends
The Dragon
Twelve Bridges
Spanish Bay
The Preserve
Wente Vineyards
Montreux
San Juan Oaks
Interestingly Pheasant Run which is in the top 10 for yardage is last in Slope of these 81 courses.
Now if we calculate the Bogey Rating (what a bogey golfer would average in his 10 best of 20 rounds) we get similar results:
Arrowcreek - Challenge - 103.2
Spyglass - 102.8
Montreux
San Juan Oaks
Ruby Hill
Twelve Bridges
Mayacama
Spanish Bay
Diablo Grande Legends
Coyote Creek Tournament - 101.7
I went back and calculated the Scratch Obstacle Rating and Bogey Obstacle Rating. In order to get these I had to use the yardage rather than the true effective playing length, so it is biased against the courses at altitude and for courses that play long (Spyglass/Pasatiempo).
Top 10 SOR:
Spyglass
Spanish Bay
Gleneagles International
Poppy Hills
Mayacama
Coyote Creek Tournament
Monterey Peninsual Dunes
Tehama
Whitney Oaks
Olympic Lake
Top 10 BOR:
Mayacama
Spyglass
Spanish Bay
Gleneagles International
Poppy Hills
Green Hills
Pebble Beach
Twelve Bridges
The Preserve
Pasatiempo
Difference between SOR and BOR:
Mayacama - 6.6 strokes more Bogey obstacles than Scratch - nasty
Spyglass
Spanish Bay
Wente Vineyards
Green Hills
The Dragon
The Preserve
Diablo Grande Legends
Poppy Hills
Glenagles International
What all this proves I don't know, but it is fun being anal once in a while.
Can someone tell me about Gleneagles International? A 9-holer that plays 6390 yards for 2 laps and has a CR of 72.8 and a slope of 140.
Interesting that Pebble Beach only shows up on the Bogey Obstacle Rating. Must be because of all that water on the right on 4-10. We used to call that "Bogey Water" in Oregon.
Mayacama might have some carries from the back tees of over 170 yards that the Bogey Golfer can't make. Those would pop the BOR real quick.
When that happens, it is really unplayable for a bogey golfer from that tee, but we still rate it for the person in between.
The spreadsheet with all these numbers for the 81 courses is available. Just e-mail me.