What's the most difficult

[Patrick_Mucci]

course that you'd enjoy playing every day, to the exclusion of  all others ?

And why ?

[Tom Bacsanyi]

There's a course called Sonnenalp here in the Vail, CO area that I really love.  I'm a fairly low single digit, but I've never broken 80 on it.  I've also never shot higher than 85.  For a mountain course it's fairly forgiving off the tee, but the green complexes are challenging, either massive or undulating or tiered.  The poa greens also can run upwards of 13 at times.  It also isn't terribly long.  You have to be on point with your approaches or make some great up and downs to score well.  

[RJ_Daley]

While I think I know what you mean, difficult has many connotations.  Do you mean grueling difficult physically, shot challenge difficult, or probably folks can think of other qualifying characteristics of 'difficult'.  

But, I'd say that it also boils down to the distance thing.  You can make a moderately difficult course from the tees most appropriate to your skill level and go to some courses back tees that makes it unrealistically difficult for you to play satisfactorily.  Yet, if you are a masocist, you might like that.
 

My idea of a difficult course I'd love to play over and over, would still have to be physically not that difficult to walk.  So, of the reputedly difficult courses I've played, if I played the 6100-6400 markers, I could take a steady diet of Whistling Straits or Kiawah TOC, Sand Hills, Crystal Downs....
Heck, now that I think of it, just about all the usual suspects we talk about here that are reputedly difficult and I've had the pleasure to play, so long as they are physically negotiable, are fine with me.

[Thomas Dai]

I could play Carnoustie (Championship course) a lot, weather/climate permitting. Why? Because it's a tough and unrelenting challenge, burns and bunkers apart, you can play the ground game and........it's a flat walk!
ATB

[Connor Dougherty]

I left Oakmont thinking that I'd love to be a member there.

I also adore Spyglass even though it has torn me to shreds in tournaments.

Winged Foot West, Kiawah, and Blackwolf Run (which I thought was harder than the Straits) also are places I feel like I could play all the time.

But those are well known courses and I think most people would list the ones that I put above. I'll put a course I played a lot called the Bridges. It was briefly featured in the feature interview from Jay Blasi in December of 2012 and is called The Bridges (not the famous one in Southern California). It's a "Johnny Miller" design which is notoriously difficult. The fairways are fairly wide, but straying away from them usually results in lost balls. The new routing the course took on to get it to finish at the clubhouse makes it a pain in the behind to walk, but the holes are decent.

Legend has it that when the course opened, Johnny Miller came out to play the inaugural round. He played the first 4 holes and stormed off the course because it was too hard!

[David_Madison]

Old Town Club for sure - - incredibly challenging and varied on and around the greens, wonderful rolling terrain for a golf course, very few level lies in wide but strategically designed fairways, wonderful aesthetics with their recently restored bunkers and native grasses, they truly get it about keeping conditions fast and firm, and a membership and club staff driving a golf culture second to none.

[David Whitmer]

I'll throw out two that I've played: Muirfield and Butler National.

Muirfield is very difficult, but gosh would I love to walk those grounds every day. And what a test...nothing unreasonable, just a demanding test that can be passed if you hit good shots.

Same for Butler National. I found it to be very difficult, but scoreable if I hit good shots. I played 1-6 two over hitting quality shots; played 7-10 six over par hitting bad shots; then played 11-18 one over hitting quality shots. You pay a heavy price for missed shots there.

One I would not want to play every day is Carnoustie. Maybe we just caught it on an extremely windy day, but it felt like too much work to me. At the end of the round I felt like I spent four hours in the ring with a heavyweight. I can play poorly on a tough course and have fun. And I did that at Carnoustie, but just barely. I remember thinking on about #15 how much I couldn't wait to walk off the last green and go grab dinner.

[Chris Roselle]

#1 would have to be Pine Valley.  There is not a bad shot in the course even though most are difficult.
#2 would be Southern Hills in Tulsa.  Played in the NAIA National Championship there in 1998 and even though the course kicked my butt I walked off 18 after each of the four rounds wanting to go right back out and try again.

[Keith OHalloran]

Pat, I have never thought of Shinnecock  as a brutally hard course, although I always play from the proper tees for me. That being said, I could play Shinnecock every day to the exclusion of all others.

[Dan Boerger]

I'll also select Pine Valley. None of the shots are overly demanding, with the possible exception of the tee shot on #14. (Also assume you can play #5 to the green front with some consistency.)

[jim_lewis]

When I was 20 years younger my answer would have been Pine Valley, but PV is "no course for an old man". Too many big numbers.

Today it is Pinehurst #2. It is very difficult, especially if you expect to hit a lot of greens. But, if you know where to miss the greens, a middle handicapper should be able to shoot close to his handicap. You can recover from a bad shot and still avoid a big number. I can think of nothing I enjoy more than the occasional, (ok, make that rare) day when I shoot a good score on #2.

[Brad Isaacs]

Really hard question, pat.  Ocean Course at Kiowa.  Beautiful Setting,  the golf is more than punitive. Play it right strategically and you are rewarded , don't, hmmmmmmmm.

[Jason Thurman]

Erin Hills is the most difficult course that I would enjoy playing to the exclusion of all others.

Pebble Beach would be the "very difficult" course that I'd MOST enjoy playing to the exclusion of all others.

[Tim Gavrich]

Ballyhack would probably get my modern course vote and Old Town would get my classic course vote.

[Rob Curtiss]

OAK HILL -EAST

I loved the course.. but tough...a great walk. great elevated greens, and always cool to play a course that held a U.S Open.

[Donnie Beck]

Seminole

[archie_struthers]

 


Hard to say but from my limited experience I'm thinking Oakmont.

Looks like lots of member games and a difficult golf course. Great burgers too !

[Michael Felton]

Question for those that have played it. Can a man in his 70s who is still a respectable golfer (say mid to late teens handicap) go around PV and still have a blast? When is the point at which PV stops being fun?

I would say yes, definitely. I wouldn't get too hung up on score, but the course is wonderful and if you play it within yourself it's pretty playable. I guess some of the holes start to get tough to play safe on (5, 6, 7, 8 spring to mind).

I could happily play Pine Valley every day. Winged Foot West is pretty darn hard and I could get used to that too. Bethpage Black if I could play it in less than 4 hours each time I go play, then that could fit too.

[John Kirk]

It depends how you measure difficulty.  The first five that came to mind were, in order:  Riviera, Shinnecock Hills, Kinloch, San Francisco and Pebble Beach.

But around the greens, I think Pasatiempo is more demanding, and pound for pound it may be more difficult.

Pasatiempo.

[Matt Bielawa]

I'm going to interpret the question literally, which means I'll exclude anything in the north.  Oakmont or others would be great, but I wouldn't enjoy playing them in the snow.

I'll say Harbour Town.  It would mean I'd live in Hilton Head, and that course itself gives me fits.  I don't have the laser-like accuracy and shot-shaping to score well there.  Good set of par 3's, some fun short 4's (9 and 13) and some other fun holes.

[Rob Curtiss]

I agree Pasatiempo around the greens is a beast.
But a BLAST

[Sean_A]

I think it would be a toss up between Rye and Ganton. 

Ciao

[Chris DeToro]

It's got to be Wolf Run outside of Indianapolis from the tips.  That course absolutely brutalized my game but I enjoyed every minute of it as it really tests every aspect of your game, including your patience

[jim_lewis]

Brian:

I have played Pine Valley many times over the past 30 years. I love the course and the total experience. I just turned 71 and play to a 13 handicap. I last played PV on back to back days in July, 2012. The experience was as great as ever. However, I must say that the golf started to feel like work on the second day. In the past, I have readily cancelled other obligations to accept an invitation to Pine Valley. I may turn the next invitation down. On the other hand, I say to anyone who has never had the experience, never, never let anything keep you from accepting an invitation no matter how old you are.

Jim

[Michael Ryan]

My interpretation of your question starts with courses I find to be on the extreme of the "difficult" spectrum.  I think of the following:

Bethpage Black
Winged Foot West
Spyglass Hill
PGA West (Stadium)
Pine Valley

Each of these courses is how I define "difficult" due to a few factors.

1) During play and upon immediate reflection of the round, I'm made brutally aware that golf is very hard and I do not posess an array of shots nor the ability to call on them when needed (I play off a 6 handicap and believe I'm the definition of Snead's line, "you have to dance with the girl you brought".  If I'm drawing the ball on the range, I have to sling it around the golf course.  If I see a fade that day, I'll slice it around the course.  Once I get into that groove, I'll throw a double cross into the situation really fast)

2) While I love golf and can play till the sun goes down when granted the appropriate hall pass (rare these days), each of the above courses represent ones in which I finish 18 and say, "thank god the clubs are going in my trunk".

Of those I think the only one I would say I would take every day over any other course would be Winged Foot West.  In my opinion, when playing from the proper tees-I think it becomes slightly more playable, but only when the rough is manageable.  

I would much rather take the hypothetical/fantasty golf question of "what fun course would you want to play every day" and names like Newport, CC of Fairfield, Shennocosset, Cypress Point, etc. come to mind.  

Great question and I'm interested to hear others feelings on truly difficult courses.

Mike