It seems like everyone has a Bethpage Black story:
Keegan Bradley began his college career there with informal practices as an 18-year-old St. John’s freshman with a crazy dream of making the PGA Tour.
Cameron Young tied what was then the Black Course record, 64, in 2017 and became the first amateur to win the New York State Open.
Tiger Woods won the eighth of his 15 major titles there, the only player to break par in a boisterous 2002 U.S. Open.
Brooks Koepka shot a course-record 63 on the way to the fourth of his five majors there, in the 2019 PGA Championship.
People used to arrive there in horse-drawn carriages.
Thousands of golfers have slept in their cars in numbered parking spots to secure reservations there.
Roger Young, a fitness enthusiast and bike shop employee from Brookhaven, this year rode a bicycle to the Bethpage parking lot and reserved his overnight spot by pitching a tent on it.
Sam Snead and Byron Nelson played to a tie there, weeks after their duel in the 1940 PGA Championship (Newsday, in its first months of existence, wrote: “The Black course at Bethpage is ranked as one of the toughest courses in the country”).
Now, the Ryder Cup itself will join the club. The small gold statue, the most prized trophy in golf, will get its own Bethpage Black story. It figures to be a loud one, an intense three-day match-play competition that begins Friday. And President Trump has said he will be there for the first rounds.
The U.S. team, captained by Bradley and including New York native Cameron Young, will try to wrest the Ryder Cup from Europe on the vast layout famous for its steep hills and rolling roars. The fit is perfect: A raucous event that has become known as much for the fans as for the players is coming to the People’s Country Club.
“We have an extreme obligation to defend their course,” Bradley said during a news conference announcing his six captain’s picks (including Young). “I think that the Ryder Cup at Bethpage is going to sort of transcend the golf world. I think it’s going to become an iconic North American sporting event. Anytime you play for your country in New York, it’s extra special, but especially at a place like Bethpage Black. It’s a public golf course that the local people play.”
IT’S A HOT TICKET
No matter where it is held, the Ryder Cup is a torrid competition and a hot ticket. Hosting it extends the legend of architect A.W. Tillinghast’s brutal gem. The Black’s 89-year history has been a both-sides-now saga. No other track can boast of holding 30,000 rounds a year for regular folks and attracting the world’s greatest golfers to two U.S. Opens, one PGA Championship and two PGA Tour playoff tournaments. The Black straddles Round Swamp Road and has feet in both Nassau and Suffolk (the eighth hole and parts of No. 7 and No. 9 are in the latter). Bethpage State Park has run major championships under governors of both parties.
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Pete Bevacqua, now athletic director at the University of Notre Dame, is proud to have secured the Ryder Cup for Bethpage when he was CEO of the PGA of America more than 10 years ago. A Westchester native, he has his own Bethpage Black story: “I grew up playing the Black Course with my dad and my friend Larry Marchini. It became a tradition for us in the summer. We would leave Bedford early, drive out to Bethpage and sign up and play. I had some of the best and, honestly, most frustrating golf experiences of my life there.”
As hard as it might be to imagine now, there were years — as recently as the early 1990s — when signing up for the Black was a last resort. “The conditions were horrid. The last course anybody wanted to play was the Black. They played it because it was the easiest to get on,” said Dave Catalano, who started working at Bethpage in 1967 and served as park director from 1996 until his retirement in 2011.
‘WARNING’ SIGN
The warning sign for Bethpage Black is pictured Monday, Oct. 1, 2018. Credit: Barry Sloan
Golfers always knew how hard the Black was — they saw the “WARNING” sign on the first tee but some chose to play there anyway rather than wait for a tee time on the Red, Green, Blue or Yellow Courses. Then, U.S. Golf Association head David Fay toured the Black in the mid-1990s and was transfixed. He had the wild idea to bring the U.S. Open to what was then a scruffy municipal 18. Fay approached Gov. George Pataki’s staff, an agreement was struck and the USGA enlisted renowned course designer Rees Jones for an epic makeover.
“When we reopened in ’98, it was like the world completely turned around. Everybody wanted to play the Black,” Catalano said. “You think about it. David Fay and George Pataki, when they agreed to host the U.S. Open at Bethpage, it saved Bethpage’s life. That was a pretty bold decision by David Fay and a pretty bold chance that George Pataki took.”
It also was a pretty big task for Catalano, who deftly navigated through thick bureaucracy. The 2002 U.S. Open was a resounding success, with an emphasis on the “sound.” Pros had never heard such unrestrained cheering at a major. “It’s pretty amazing they can yell that loud,” Woods said at the time.
Quickly, the USGA scheduled a reprise for 2009, and just as quickly lost interest. The second Bethpage Open was a rain-drenched slog marked by bitter disputes over ticket refunds. That was trouble for the Black, which relied on big-event rental fees to support the upkeep. Superintendent Craig Currier had given all five Bethpage courses “country club conditions,” Catalano said, but the park needed funding to maintain them.
Peter Mele, tournament director of The Barclays on the PGA Tour, provided an unsolicited lifeline when he approached Catalano at a testimonial dinner for Currier and asked about using the Black. That tournament temporarily kept the ball rolling at Bethpage.
Meanwhile, incoming PGA of America (unrelated to the PGA Tour) president Ted Bishop paid a visit. When Catalano came out to visit him on the 12th hole, Bishop told him, “This place is unbelievable. We’ve got to talk.”
Talk grew serious when Bevacqua took over the association in 2012. He and Bishop went to dinner in Manhattan with two resourceful Long Islanders, Catalano and Metropolitan PGA Executive Director Charlie Robson. “The USGA had stepped away from its commitment to have the U.S. Open there. I said, ‘Let’s get this done, let’s bring the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup to Bethpage. What a great thing that would be for golf, for the PGA of America, for the Ryder Cup.’ That started a series of conversations [with Gov. Andrew Cuomo]. The deal came together pretty quickly,” Bevacqua said on the phone from South Bend, Indiana where he is the athletic director at his beloved Notre Dame.
“What I love about Bethpage is that it’s truly a public golf course in a way that is very different from a Pebble Beach or a Pinehurst. It’s a very accessible, reasonably priced course. Brutally difficult, but it is accessible to anyone. It is remarkable.”
It is remarkable for welcoming people like both Cameron Young, a PGA Tour standout, and Roger Young, a member of the Long Island Golf Junkies Facebook group.
It is remarkable for shining as the center of the golf universe, as it will this week. “I cannot wait to be in Bethpage,” Jon Rahm said after he was named to the European team. “New York fans can actually be quite fun. They are very funny, very creative. So, if you approach it with the right mindset, I think it can be a really, really fun week. Stressful, yes, but it could be very productive.”
It is remarkable because it is here to stay. The PGA of America plans to continue holding majors there.
It is most remarkable for the fact that, not long after the Ryder Cup is hoisted and Champagne soaks the ground, anybody will be able to show up at the Black Course and create their own story.
