Quick Answer: Port Royal’s par-3 16th at the Bermuda Championship is the toughest PGA Tour par 3s, playing +0.276 over par across six seasons of official scoring data. Quail Hollow’s Green Mile 17th ranks second. TPC Sawgrass’s Island Green isn’t statistically the hardest, but it’s still the one every player fears most.
My handicap sits at 11, and PGA National’s Bear Trap has beaten me more times than I can count on one hand. I’ve hit a 7-iron, an 8-iron, and once a smooth 6-iron into that 17th green, and I’ve made exactly one par there in three attempts. That’s the gap between me and a PGA Tour pro standing on the same tee box.
This list ranks the toughest PGA Tour par 3s using six seasons of actual scoring data, not gut feel or a poll of Facebook commenters. You’ll get the numbers behind each hole, straight answers to the two questions golfers keep typing into Google about long par 3s and par-4 aces, and one honest admission about a famous hole that doesn’t actually deserve its difficulty reputation.
How We Ranked the Toughest PGA Tour Par 3s
Difficulty on Tour gets measured one way that actually matters: strokes over par, tracked across multiple seasons instead of one gusty Thursday. We used the PGA Tour’s own scoring reports and a six-year database, covering 2021 through 2026, that tracks hole-by-hole averages at every fixed Tour venue. That data set skips rotating major sites like the U.S. Open, and that detail matters later when we talk about 300-yard par 3s.
That data set turns up only two par 3s inside the tour’s overall 25 hardest holes, with every other spot taken by a long par 4. We explain why further down. For now, it means the top two holes on this list come from the most rigorous methodology available anywhere, not a poll or a gut check.
The rest of the ranking draws on single-season scoring data, tournament history, and reputation, and we say so at each hole instead of pretending every number comes from an identical source. That’s the standard we used to rank the toughest PGA Tour par 3s: real numbers first, honest sourcing always.
The 8 Toughest PGA Tour Par 3s Right Now
Here’s how the eight toughest PGA Tour par 3s stack up side by side, with the scoring average and signature hazard for each one.
1. Port Royal No. 16: The Cliffside Killer (Bermuda Championship)
Port Royal’s 16th sits above the Atlantic on the edge of a cliff, and there’s nothing behind the green but ocean. At 235 yards, it isn’t the longest par 3 on this list, but wind off the water turns club selection into guesswork every single year. Across five editions of the Bermuda Championship, the hole has played over par every time, averaging +0.276 strokes since the tournament joined the current schedule. That’s the highest multi-year average of any par 3 tracked across the last six PGA Tour seasons.
2. Quail Hollow No. 17: The Green Mile’s Middle Trap (Truist Championship)
Quail Hollow’s Green Mile closes with three of the meanest holes on Tour, and the 17th sits wedged in the middle of that stretch. It normally plays around 190 yards for the Truist Championship, but Quail Hollow pushed the tee back to 223 yards when it hosted the 2025 PGA Championship, and the hole promptly played to +0.394 over par that week. The six-year scoring average sits at +0.269, second only to Port Royal’s 16th. Deep bunkers guard the front and water sits short, so a shot that comes up even a little timid finds trouble fast.
It’s the scariest tee shot on Tour with a trophy on the line, and it’s not particularly close.
3. TPC Sawgrass No. 17: The Island Green (THE PLAYERS Championship)
I played the Stadium Course as a 9-handicap the winter after they reopened it, and I still remember standing on the 17th tee with a gap wedge, unable to commit to the swing. The hole plays just 137 yards, one of the shortest on Tour, and the green measures nearly 4,000 square feet. None of that matters once the wind picks up over the water.
Since 2003, more than 1,068 balls have found the lake, and the hole’s scoring average of 3.12 over the last 23 years is the highest of any sub-150-yard par 3 on Tour. Bob Tway posted a 12 there in 2005, still the worst score in tournament history, and players have made 14 aces on the same hole across Players Championship history. TPC Sawgrass’s 17th isn’t the statistically hardest hole on this list, and I don’t care. It’s the best short par 3 in golf.
4. PGA National Nos. 15 and 17: The Bear Trap (Cognizant Classic)
The Bear Trap is two par 3s bookending a par 4, and both threes play over water at PGA National’s Champion Course. The 15th, at 179 yards, edged out the 17th as the toughest hole on the course in 2024, averaging 3.228 strokes against the 17th’s 3.184. Miss right on either hole and the ball is gone. Miss left, and the up-and-down is nowhere close to automatic.
I played the 17th as an 11-handicap with a 7-iron in hand and left myself an 18-footer, a good result by amateur standards. I still made bogey. That’s the Bear Trap in a sentence: even the shots that feel good rarely turn into the score you wanted.
5. Muirfield Village No. 16: Nicklaus’s Own Test (The Memorial Tournament)
Jack Nicklaus built Muirfield Village, and the 220-yard 16th is one of the most demanding tests he put into his own course. During the 2022-23 season, the hole played to +0.364 over par, the single hardest full-season mark any par 3 posted anywhere in our research. A pond guards the front-right of the green, and the putting surface is small enough that missing the correct tier from 220 yards out often means a three-putt even after finding the green.
6. Innisbrook Copperhead No. 13: Quiet and Brutal (Valspar Championship)
Most golfers know Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course for the Snake Pit, the closing three-hole stretch that finishes with a 215-yard par 3 at 17. The hole that actually shows up hardest in the scoring data, though, is the 13th. At 200 yards and elevated, it played to +0.317 over par during the 2022-23 season, tougher than its more famous sibling down the stretch. Wind moves differently at that elevation, and a shot that looks committed in the air often comes up short on the green.
7. Vidanta Vallarta No. 17: Wind Off the Pacific (Mexico Open)
Vidanta Vallarta’s 10th hole, a par 4, is the hardest hole on the entire PGA Tour by six-year scoring average. Its par-3 17th, at 226 yards, isn’t far behind among par 3s. The hole played to +0.304 over par during the 2022-23 season, with Pacific coast wind doing most of the damage. Players who take too much club end up long and short-sided, and players who take too little end up wet.
8. TPC Scottsdale No. 16: The Coliseum (WM Phoenix Open)
TPC Scottsdale’s 16th is the most famous par 3 on the PGA Tour, and it’s also the weakest hole on this list by the numbers. The hole plays a modest 162 yards, and during the 2016 season it produced a 3.015 scoring average, the easiest of the course’s par 3s and the 142nd hardest hole on the entire Tour that year. Tiger Woods aced it back in 1997 in front of a crowd that erupted like they’d won something themselves.
If you’re judging by strokes over par, the 16th doesn’t belong on a difficulty list at all. What makes it brutal has nothing to do with yardage. It’s the only fully enclosed hole on Tour, ringed by grandstands holding 20,000 fans who boo a missed green as loudly as they cheer a good one. That’s a different kind of hard, and it’s just as real.
Why Almost No Par 3s Make the PGA Tour’s Overall Hardest-Holes List
Here’s a pattern that surprised us during research: of the tour’s 25 hardest holes by six-year scoring average, 23 are par 4s and zero are par 5s. Only two are par 3s, and you just read about both of them. Par 5s give pros a two-shot cushion to recover from a bad drive, and that cushion shows up in the scoring data every single year.
Par 3s, on the other hand, are supposed to be the scoring holes. Most measure under 200 yards, and a scratch player’s Tuesday practice round treats them like wedge and putt. The long par 4s in the 460 to 525-yard range demand a driver into trouble and then a long iron into a small target, with almost no margin between the world’s 50th-best player and its 5th-best. That gap barely exists on a 150-yard par 3, which is exactly why so few crack the very top of the list.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the hardest par 3 on the PGA Tour?
Port Royal’s 16th hole at the Bermuda Championship is the hardest par 3 on the PGA Tour by six-year scoring average, playing +0.276 over par since the tournament joined the current schedule in 2021. Quail Hollow’s 17th, the middle hole of the Green Mile, ranks a close second at +0.269. Both numbers come from official PGA Tour scoring reports covering 2021 through 2026.
What is the most famous par 3 in golf?
On the PGA Tour specifically, that’s TPC Sawgrass’s 17th, the Island Green at THE PLAYERS Championship. It isn’t the statistically hardest hole on Tour, but its water-locked green and decades of meltdowns and highlight-reel aces make it the most recognized short hole in the sport. Outside the PGA Tour, Royal Troon’s Postage Stamp and Augusta National’s Golden Bell get mentioned just as often, though neither is a regular PGA Tour venue.
Is there a 300-yard par 3?
Yes, though not on a standard PGA Tour stop. Oakmont Country Club’s 8th hole played a full 300 yards in the final round of the 2007 U.S. Open and 301 yards in the final round of the 2025 U.S. Open. The U.S. Open is run by the USGA, not the PGA Tour, so Oakmont’s 8th never shows up in the PGA Tour’s own hole-by-hole scoring database, even though plenty of Tour pros have played it. For more on how a USGA setup differs from a normal Tour week, see our breakdown of Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, another major venue that plays nothing like a typical PGA Tour stop.
Has anyone ever aced a par 4?
Once, on the PGA Tour. Andrew Magee holed his tee shot on the 332-yard 17th hole at TPC Scottsdale during the first round of the 2001 Phoenix Open, and the ball had help getting there. Magee’s drive bounced onto the green and deflected off the putter of Tom Byrum, playing the group ahead, before dropping into the cup. It remains the only par-4 hole-in-one in PGA Tour history, a shot so rare our hole-in-one odds guide treats it as its own category.
The Bottom Line
The scoring data settles this better than any opinion poll ever could. Port Royal’s 16th and Quail Hollow’s 17th are the two toughest PGA Tour par 3s by six years of hard numbers, and TPC Sawgrass’s 17th earns its reputation even without leading those stats. Whichever hole you’d rank first, the gap between watching these shots on TV and standing over one yourself is the whole sport in miniature. If you want to see one of these tests up close, our guide to TPC Harding Park covers the public side of the TPC network, where you can actually book a tee time instead of just watching.