FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — The most iconic square footage at Bethpage Black isn’t fairway, tee or green. Instead it’s a sign — white panel, black letters, headlined with “WARNING” in red — that overlooks the first tee, serving as word of caution (or challenge) to those golfers lucky and brave enough to take on its brutish test. It reads as follows:
The Black Course Is An Extremely Difficult Course Which We Recommend Only For Highly Skilled Golfers.
The sign is so famous because WARNING is a built-in part of the Bethpage Black experience. It’s often listed in compilations of America’s hardest golf courses, in conversation just behind brutes like Oakmont. It’s tough enough that it’s hosted not just PGA Tour events but a PGA Championship and two U.S. Opens before that. The Black is tough for pros and joes alike. That’s the point.
But this week? The sign is a lie. We have “Highly Skilled Golfers,” no doubt — but the “Extremely Difficult Course” did not show up for the first day of the Ryder Cup.
In part that was because of weather. Buckets of rain rolled through on Wednesday and Thursday, soaking the course and meaning every approach shot landed like a marble in jello — while the main challenge players in the fairway faced was spin control. The rain also pushed tournament organizers to play lift, clean and place, yielding perfect lies. And conditions were perfect for scoring; Friday was warm all day, it didn’t rain and there was hardly a breath of wind.
In part, though, Bethpage’s accessibility was a choice. As this event’s hosts, American leadership was given the chance to prepare the course as they saw fit — and they chose to make it wide open, limiting the penalties for missing off the tee with widened fairways and unrecognizably hospitable rough, which on Friday only occasionally served as any real hindrance.
Players knew this was coming.
“This is not the normal Bethpage Black,” Harris English said on Thursday, the day before the event began. “You’re going to see a lot more birdies out there than you normally would in the PGA or the U.S. Open.”
Bryson DeChambeau emphasized just how difficult the course had been for the 2019 PGA — and just how different this week would play. “The golf course was a beast,” he said. “Rough was a lot longer. This week … the rough isn’t as penalizing.”
Traditionally there are ways to exploit setup to your team’s advantage, just one of several home-course perks. In Rome, for instance, Team Europe limited the number of wedges players would hit and doubled down on the number of long-iron shots, knowing where its players had a statistical edge. It made long par-4s longer and short par-4s shorter and left players with very few of the stock 125-yard approach shots they see so often on the PGA Tour.
Traditionally there has also been a difference between the profiles of the Americans (longer but wilder hitters) and the Europeans (accurate, clever, wily) that has lent itself to different styles of course setup. In Paris and Rome the home team grew up the rough and leaned into home-course quirks — and it paid off. This year, though? The differences are subtler and tougher to isolate. Both teams have plenty of bombers. All 24 competitors play the PGA Tour. And so the decision to cut the rough combined with nature’s decision to soften the greens meant that on Thursday, bogeys were few and far between.
There are a few numbers that told the story, including the overall scoring average, which was a couple strokes over par during Bethpage’s major championships but hovered a couple strokes under par for much of Thursday and nearly 3 under par going into Friday.
Accounting for concessions and weighting by the number of time each hole was played, the average 18-hole score is -2.9. At Bethpage Black.
— data golf (@DataGolf) September 27, 2025
But here’s probably the simplest way to put it: In morning foursomes, the hardest format, Europe’s first three teams played a combined 44 holes. They made 17 birdies — and zero bogeys.
alternate shot is the toughest scoring format, but we’re well into the second session and far the first 3 European teams — Fitz/Aberg, Rory/Fleetwood, Rahm/Hatton — have made 26 birdies and ZERO BOGEYS. dismantling this golf course
— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) September 27, 2025
Clearly U.S. leadership figured it found an advantage in their toothless Bethpage setup. Early in this Ryder Cup, though, it’s the Europeans who have been feasting. It’s too late to grow out the rough — and impossible to firm up the greens. So the Americans will have to reclaim Bethpage by out-birdieing their opponents.
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