Our Town: Bethpage Black: ‘The people’s country club’

The Island Now

Fifth in a series
Nassau County has some of the finest golf courses in the world including Deepdale, The Creek, Piping Rock, Garden City and Meadowbrook.  
But there is one golf course that is regularly ranked higher then all of them.  
It was A.W. Tillinghast’s last design and is considered his finest masterpiece.   
Welcome to “The Black Monster” at Bethpage State Park, created in 1936 thanks to money from the Work Relief Program.
The Black is one of five courses at Bethpage State Park and by far it’s most famous.  
Tillinghast used the Pine Valley as a model and made the greens small and  guarded by deep  menacing bunkers.
The course is now the darling of both the USGA and the PGA having hosted the 2001 and 2009 U. S. Open and the 2011 Barclays, this year’s Barclays  (Aug.  23  to Aug. 28) and the 2019 Ryder Cup.
However the Black was not always the beautiful gem it is today.  
When I was young I would occasionally put my clubs on my back and peddle my bike all the way from Massapequa Park to Bethpage State Park to play there.
That was more than six miles.
Ah yes the amazing  irrepressible energy of youth.  If I attempted that ride now I would insist that an ambulance follow me all the way in the event I suffer a heart attack, heat stroke, or a sudden spinal herniation.
In the 1960s Bethpage Black was a true wasteland.  
The tees were all hard dirt and you hit off a black rubber mat.
The course was mostly burnt out and rocks and weeds filled most sand traps.   
But in 1982 the course underwent a refurbishing and was restored to its former glory.  
David Catalano was the greens keeper from 1995 to 2011 and he hired Craig Currier to help him get the course ready for the 2001 U. S. Open.  
It remains  a pristine, gorgeous but very daunting challenge.   
As I golf writer  I was invited to play the course before each Open and consider the Black to be the only par 82 in the world.
According to my count  there are 14 par 5s, no par 4s and four par 3s.  
To get to Bethpage you approach the course along a lovely tree lined road that ends with a small circular drive paved with Belgian blocks with a Colonial style clubhouse.
The course attracts many high-caliber players.
One of the first times I played there as a teen I played in a foursome with  a guy named Rocco, who had played in the U.S. Open the previous year.  
The first tee is high atop a hill and like all great golf courses each hole is memorable.  
The 4th  is a short par five which reminds me of many holes at Pine Valley.
You must play target golf or wind up in Sahara like bunkers that seems to swallow you up.  
The 17th hole may be the second best par 3 on earth only rivaled by No. 16 at Cypress Point.
I was there last Sunday at about 9 a.m. and despite 93 degree heat there were a bunch of happy looking golfers getting ready to play on the Yellow, the Red, the Blue or the Green.
The Black was closed as it makes itself ready for the arrival of the Barclay’s and the world’s best golfers on Aug. 23.
I feel a lot like golf guru Harvey Penick who once said “If you play golf you are my friend” so it’s easy to approach the golfers waiting to play and ask about where they were from.
One group traveled from Manhattan.  
They all said that they like playing the Black because it was challenging, beautiful and had perfect greens.
Andrew Wilson is head golf course superintendent and Michael Hadley is the Black Course superintendent  and together they has shaped Bethpage Black into the finest public course in the nation.
And here it is right in our own back yard.
The Black has come a long, long way from the early 1960s when kids like me had to tee it up on hard dirt and rubber mats.  
This course is a true miracle to behold.
Since the economic collapse  of 2008  there has been much hand wringing  that the golf industry is in trouble, that club membership is down, that rounds per year are declining and that the millennials face paced life style precludes the game of golf.
I always laugh to myself when I hear this.  
Golf is one of those games that is nearly perfect.
You have a six-mile walk in breathtaking natural settings, get to unwind, compete and chat with friends.
When one plays this game it’s almost impossible not to fall in love with it.
Finally golf has been included in the Rio Olympics as a way of introducing golf to South America.
The idea was met with resistance by the top four golfers  in the world (Jordan Spieth, Jason day, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson).
I predict that will prove to be a costly public relations mistake for those four.  
When NBC’s Matt Lauer talks about golf in the  Rio Olympics he discusses the poverty in Brazil but that despite the poverty golf seems to be embraced by the nation.  
The Rio Olympics reminds me of Bethpage Black, which hosted the first “People’s Open.”
Long Island is lucky indeed to have one of the world’s great golf courses available to anyone who wants to play it.

By Tom Ferraro

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