41. MEDINAH COUNTRY CLUB (NO. 3)
MEDINAH / ILL. / 7,561 YARDS / PAR 72
If Butler National is the Al Capone of Chicago golf, then Medinah is its Frank Nitti--cruel and relentless.
42. COLBERT HILLS GOLF COURSE
MANHATTAN / KAN. / 7,525 YARDS / PAR 72
Kansas State alum Jim Colbert co-designed it to be the toughest college course in the country. It's constantly blasted by a fierce south wind that can blow the hairpiece right off your head.
43. THE SHATTUCK GOLF CLUB
JAFFREY / N.H. / 6,764 YARDS / PAR 71
It once boasted the highest Slope in New England. It still features the most bridges over wetlands: 33 in 18 holes. Get your ball retriever regripped before you play.
44. THE COURSE AT YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN / CONN. / 6,749 YARDS / PAR 70
Scene of many a heated Golf Digest intramural battle, the rugged C.B. Macdonald layout can be a brute, especially the 238-yard ninth, whose green has an eight-foot-deep ravine running through it, and the par-5 18th, where between tee and green is something akin to Table Mountain. One frustrated editor described the course as 18 good reasons to send your kid to Harvard.
45. MONTOUR HEIGHTS COUNTRY CLUB
CORAOPOLIS / PA. / 6,719 YARDS / PAR 72
The contour of Montour is mostly mountain slopes. The fairway on the uphill 14th is so steep, it would make a perfectly fine Olympic ski run.
46. THUNDERHILL GOLF COURSE
MADISON / OHIO / 7,504 YARDS / PAR 72
A fish-hatchery-turned-golf course, it once had nearly 100 water hazards, but 26 of them have been eliminated. If you think you can finish the round with the ball you started with, you're all wet.
47. ORONOQUE COUNTRY CLUB
STRATFORD / CONN. / 6,573 YARDS / PAR 72
Another local for Golf Digest HQ. Every state has a course like Oronoque--a triple-bogey farm with O.B. everywhere, doglegs at 220 yards, Humpty Dumpty greens, narrow hogback fairways. Perhaps not Desmond Muirhead's proudest achievement.
48. TEAL WING GOLF CLUB
HAYWARD / WIS. / 6,379 YARDS / PAR 72
Some fairways are no wider than their tee boxes. Apparently, no trees were harmed in the making of this golf course.
49. MOOSE RUN GOLF COURSE (CREEK)
FORT RICHARDSON / ALASKA / 7,324 YARDS / PAR 72
The course is fearsome, so is the weather and the wildlife: bears, wolves, mosquitoes on steroids. Rule 23-1: Moose dung counts as a loose impediment.
50. FURNACE CREEK GOLF COURSE
DEATH VALLEY / CALIF. / 6,236 YARDS / PAR 70
What's hard about a short, flat course? It's the lowest in the world (214 feet below sea level), and the barometric pressure makes the ball go even shorter and more crooked than usual. But to be really tough, play this oasis in the desert in midsummer, when it reaches 110 degrees at 9 a.m. and keeps climbing (a temperature of 134 degrees has been recorded in Death Valley). Don't worry, though: At night it cools off to about 100.
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