2024 saw 13 PGA Tour courses play over par out of the 51 courses played. The toughest course was Pinehurst Number 2 which hosted the U.S. Open won by Bryson DeChambeau with a winning score of -6/274; second toughest by the thinnest of margins (0.04 of a stroke) was Royal Troon which hosted The Open Championship, with Augusta National – home of The Masters – making up the podium places in third spot.
Pinehurst Number 2 – The Toughest Course in 2024
From a non-Major Championship perspective, Muirfield Village Golf Club (The Memorial Tournament), Colonial Country Club (Charles Schwab Challenge) and Quail Hollow Club (Wells Fargo Championship) were the toughest golf courses in 2024, ranking Number 4–6 overall in difficulty. Valhalla Golf Course, which hosted the PGA Championship, was the easiest Major set-up, ranking 14th overall.
The easiest course played in 2024 on the PGA Tour was the Plantation Course at Kapalua which hosted The Sentry as the first tournament of the season. The unique Par 73 format was played with a field average of 68.37, with Chris Kirk winning with a total score of -29/263.
Kapalua – The Easiest Course in 2024
From a season-to-season perspective, 13 courses played over par out of 51 courses in 2024. This compares to 17 courses across the 2022/23 season, 16 courses in the 2021/22 season, and 19 courses in the 2020/21 season.
Across all rounds on all PGA Tour courses in 2024, the average round was -1.04 under par. That compares to -0.90 last season (2022/23), -0.59 in the 2021/22 season, and -0.43 in the 2020/21 season.
This highlights that course scoring conditions, player ability and golf technology are coming together to continually lower scoring on the PGA Tour.