Guide
GSPro course difficulty: the easiest and hardest courses, rated
Every course in the directory carries a 0 to 10 difficulty rating, read straight off its own scorecard. Pick one that actually matches your level instead of guessing from a screenshot or a name that sounds hard.
Updated July 2026
The difficulty ladder
The scale breaks into four tiers, each a different band of the same 0 to 10 scorecard rating.
| Tier | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | Under 4 / 10 | Wide fairways and forgiving rough. A place to start, or to relax. |
| Intermediate | 4 to 6 / 10 | Enough teeth to matter, still fair enough to score. |
| Challenging | 6 to 8 / 10 | Tight fairways, fast greens, real trouble if you miss. |
| Expert | 8 and up | The hardest tier, built to expose every weakness in your game. |
The easiest courses
New to GSPro, or just want a relaxed round? Start at the bottom of the scale. These courses sit under 4 out of 10 and are built to be forgiving: wide fairways, short rough, and greens that don't punish a slightly missed read.
Mammoth Dunes, Manele Golf Course, and Brocket Hall Palmerston Course are good examples of what an easy GSPro course looks like in practice. Manele Golf Course is designer-created and inspired by a real Hawaiian resort course, so you get a scenic round while you're still learning the ropes.
See the full beginner-friendly list for more.
The hardest courses
At the top of the scale, courses are rated 8 out of 10 or higher. These are pro-level tests: narrow fairways, fast greens, and forced carries that leave almost no room for a bad swing.
Carnoustie earned its real-world nickname "Car-nasty" for a reason, and the GSPro version doesn't go easy on you either. Nefyn and Palm Beach Country Club are two more courses in the directory that live at this end of the scale.
Want to see the whole hard half of the directory, ranked? Check the expert-tier list or browse every course rated 6 and up, hardest first.
How we rate difficulty
We don't calculate the difficulty number ourselves. Every GSPro course ships with a scorecard, and most designers put a difficulty rating or a star row right on it, the same way a real golf scorecard shows a slope rating.
We read that number off the scorecard for every course in the directory and show it on the course page. What you see here is the designer's own call on how hard their course plays. Curious how it all shakes out? See GSPro course difficulty by the numbers for the full distribution across the directory.
Browse every course by difficulty