Toughest Course In America

Whats the toughest course in the U>SA Is it Oakmont? Is it Winged Foot? SHinnecock Hills?

Maybe not the toughest... but it is the most difficult I have played...

http://www.grandtraverseresort.com/i...hp/do/The_Bear

This course is also considered one of Michigan's Monters, but I shot great on it... if not for a 6 on a par 3 it would have been the round of my life!

http://www.shepherdshollow.com/?

Everything I've read and heard says that you have to call Pine Valley the toughest course in America, if not the world. They say it's completely unforgiving, nothing but waste bunkers, reed patches, water, etc..., as soon as you leave the fairways and greens like mushrooms.

My vote is for the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island. When the wind is blowing it's nearly impossible.

The GolfDigest from March 2007:

1. THE OCEAN COURSE
KIAWAH ISLAND / S.C. / 7,356 YARDS / PAR 72
Pete Dye, 81, has been torturing golfers for half his life, and the Ocean Course, strung along the Atlantic coastline with fairways and greens perched above sand, sea oats and sweetgrass, is perhaps his most Dye-abolical design. (Eight of our top 50 were created by the man they call the "Marquis de Sod.") The Ocean has the highest combination of Slope Rating (155) and Course Rating (79.6) in America, according to the U.S. Golf Association. With forced carries over marshes, endless waste bunkers and roll-resistant Bermuda grasses, the Ocean is a rare course that can bring tears and fears even to tour pros--it was dubbed Looney Dunes after multiple mishaps in the 1991 Ryder Cup. For the rest of us, it kicks sand in our face--literally when howling winds turn club covers into windsocks. Play it in the mornings when it's walking only. You can't cross the Rubicon in a golf cart.

2. THE INTERNATIONAL (THE PINES)
BOLTON / MASS. / 8,325 YARDS / PAR 73
It has pounded its chest as the longest golf course in the land since 1957, only once adding new back tees when someone dared to challenge its supremacy. The numbers are laughable: 8,325 yards, par 73, with a Course Rating of 80. The closing hole is 656 yards--and it's not even the longest par 5 on the course. There's also a par 6, the 715-yard fifth hole, and the par-3 seventh is 277 yards. Length isn't its only overindulgence: The fifth green is 91 yards long and takes more than an hour to mow, and the 11th, a modest 590-yard par 5, has 24 bunkers. If you plan to play it from the tips, be sure you have a three-day weekend.

3. KOOLAU GOLF CLUB
KANEOHE / OAHU / HAWAII / 7,310 YARDS / PAR 72
With parts of the course receiving 130 inches of rain a year, this is target golf at its soggiest. You won't need a caddie so much as a backcountry guide. The roughs are tropical rain forests, the hazards mostly uncharted ravines filled with jungle and undiscovered reptilian life forms. Typical of the course's unsubtle presentation, the 474-yard, par-4 18th features two long forced carries over canyons plus a 330-yard bunker off the tee and a 220-yard bunker to the green. Legend has it that the course record was once 63 ... lost balls. Koolau used to have a Slope Rating of 162, even though the maximum possible is 155.

I haven't played it but I have heard that the Ocean Course is so hard that it is unfair. I have talked to two people who have played it, a 2 and a 5 handicap, and they both said they won't go back. They say it's just not fair.

Oakmont makes the Ocean Course at Kiawah look like a little boy.. I mean if you were at the 07 Open...it was like hell---Oakmont is soo hot in the summer--its long as heck--greens are the hardest in the world--and the course is the ugliest course because every hole looks the same--Oakmont is a pyschological madness of a place on this planet. Not to mention if you play oakmont youre playing the us open as we speak--

I don't know. I would assume Oakmont would be the hardest.

The hardest I have played is

http://www.lapurisimagolf.com/

It was ridiculous.

Beth Page Black is the toughest I have ever played. It kicked my arss!!!

I got to play KOOLAU. I was told to play the course, you should multiply your handicap by 2 and the product is how many balls you should have in the bag before you head out to the 1st tee. Luckily, I took my friend's advice! Shots just slightly off are basically in the jungle too deep to even bother looking. Bring a machete! "Hitting a provisional" and "Dropping 2, hitting 3" were the group's rally calls. I stopped counting strokes and started counting balls lost. Anyway, If you ever get out to Oahu, check it out. It's a beautiful course.

Ive played both Shinnecock and Bethpage, IMO Bethpage is a tougher course. Those are the only two major courses ive played on so I cant attest to other ones mentioned in this thread.

Oakmont, that rough is just nasty.