Bethpage Black Review

The sign behind the first tee, warning that the Black is recommended only for highly skilled golfers, is the most honest piece of signage in the sport. The course is long, the rough is deep, the bunkers are deeper and steep sided, and the fourth and the fifteenth are as hard as any two holes a public golfer will ever meet. Tillinghast routed it across real glacial terrain, and the uphill approaches and blind shoulders give it a scale no modern municipal course even attempts.

It has now taken two national opens, a PGA Championship and a Ryder Cup, and it stands up to professionals without needing to be tricked up for them. Conditioning is the compromise and everybody who plays it knows the deal going in. Fairways and rough are kept to a high standard and the greens run firm and true, but the bunkers show the volume of play, and in a busy week some of them go unraked for days.

That is what fifty thousand rounds a year does to a golf course. The scenery is handsome parkland rather than anything you stop to photograph. The value is extraordinary. A New York resident pays less to play a Ryder Cup course than most golfers pay for a twilight round at a resort, and even the out of state rate is a fraction of what the other major venues charge.