Bethpage Black Golf Course Guide | Insight From PGA Tour Pros | Golfing World

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The inside guide at Bethpage Black golf course, with help from the likes of Patrick Reed, Jim Furyk, Jimmy Walker and Kevin Streelman.
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25 Comments

  1. Sounds like a fun course but shot management is what's going to make it not miserable. I'm used to playing torrey pines south which the back tees have a similar slope rating. Some of the bunkers there are a nightmare to get yourself into

  2. 3:40 of course you can hit a 4-iron out of the bunkers.
    You can hit whatever you want if you're far enough back from the lip & you set up properly for the shot

    The big thing about this course is that the bunkers are actually not bad places to be, after the fairways, greens & rough. The bunkers are rarely obstructed by trees & it's much better to hit out of the bunkers than out of that tall, thick waste around the bunkers and greens or try to hit to the green from behind a tree. And if you look close you'll notice that this course not only has a lot of waste, but the waste runs up very tight to the bunkers & greens. Hitting out of the rough is not a lot of fun either but still better than trying to play out of the waste. So if you keep yourself under control you can at least recover from the bunkers and rough easily enough, maybe losing 25%-50% of your normal distance per club but most critically gaining enough distance to get to the green without hitting back into an obstruction that takes the green out of reach possibly even losing your ball on the approach. Quite often players will hit crappy shots off the tees and fairways, end up in the obstructions, try to hit great recovery shots out of the obstructions and either duff the ball badly or spin themselves into even worse trouble, and that is where the length, abundant waste, rough & sand really take their toll. You don't have to be a great golfer to play this course decently, but you do have to be pretty smart and adapt to the course and not try to play this course like you're playing your home course with much less waste, short rough & no real carries. It's good to hit decent shots whether it's out of the rough or waste or off the tees and fairways, plain and simple. But in the end it's only a golf course. You can play literally for stroke and take 10+ per hole, or just pick up after +2 or +3 and move on. What they don't want is people spraying balls all over the course and then taking 5 minutes between shots and trying to find their ball before they give up, drop a ball and then promptly lose their new ball. That is the outcome that is a lot more likely to happen here than on most other courses but still that rarely happens here because the rest of the 4some won't take it and certainly the 4some behind won't take it. I've seen good players fall apart on this course simply because they took it too seriously but I've never seen anyone who really sucked play this course, hold up play and have everyone around them mad at them for holding up the course. So that sign is a harbinger of things to come, but it doesn't really mean much. People who want to play the Black are going to play the Black no matter their skill-level. What really keeps this course under control is that it is expensive (especially for out-of-staters), tricky to get on (likewise), and they make you walk a 7500 yard course on top of the difficulty of playing it, and so you rarely see people play it more than once unless they are locals. I suspect that if you really suck and they have to push you along, then you won't get back on the course. But I've never actually seen that happen myself. The main thing is that you don't have to play a course this hard to be challenged if you're not all that good, and the course will fairly quickly tell you if you're out of your league trying to play it. Even if so, just pickup after 6 or 7 shots & move on to the next hole. At least drop intelligently. Do not be one of those douchebags who spends 5 minutes trudging around in the waste trying to find their ball or who is constantly putting balls into the waste and takes 8 or more strokes per hole.

  3. Great course. I have played so many great courses in New York, and Bethpage Black is one of the best I've played. It's always in such great condition and tough as hell

  4. "Hot New York Summers"… Yeah, damn those breezy 85 degree days can be just brutal! 😅😅😅

  5. 2:08 "The course has one of the highest slope ratings in America's North East, meaning it also represents a very testing physical challenge for the players, especially in the hot New York summers".

    I'm not sure the narrator even understands what a slope rating is. Sounds like he thinks the players have a lot of steep slopes to walk up…

  6. Had lunch there last Memorial Day and watched the golfers hit their drives off number one on the Black and was surprised at how many of them had no business being on that golf course. It took some groups over twenty minutes to play that hole.

    I've played it and it's a great track but it takes forever to play it and it is very long. I prefer the red course. Very fair and just as pretty as the black. Had my first hole in one there many years ago.

    If you're a single digit handicap – play the black but if you're not, save yourself a day of frustration and embarrassment and pick any of the other four golf courses at Bethpage: red, blues, green, yellow.

  7. Shot 92 off the back when I was 2 handicapper to give context. Actually struck it fairly well. Another course, it wouls have been more a 78. All about course management as I found out on the 4th hole with a 9.

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