By Phil Carlucci
Bethpage Black knows something about exceeding expectations in the warmth and glare of the international spotlight. This is a course that, in just a week’s work, crowned Tiger Woods the U.S. Open champion in 2002 and forever altered the world’s perception of American public golf.
It hasn’t felt anything quite like the intense heat of this month’s Ryder Cup, however.
The typical Sunday morning rhythms and beats of downtown Farmingdale, N.Y., will pulse with a rare energy when the United States and European teams meet in singles matches on September 28, the final day of the 45th Ryder Cup. As locals line up for Whiskey Down Diner brunch and pick through vegetable bins at the weekly farmers market, just up Main Street, thousands of golf fans will stream into the village’s Long Island Railroad hub, a brief stop before joining tens of thousands more at perhaps the most prestigious sporting event ever staged on the East Coast.
If there is any event that can dwarf a U.S. Open, it’s the Ryder Cup. And if there is any golf facility perfectly fit to absorb the teeming, temporary city that comes with it, it’s Bethpage. Like 2025 Scottie Scheffler in a four-ball tandem with Tiger at his peak, it’s almost too perfect of a pairing.
“Everything is much bigger for the Ryder Cup,” says championship director Bryan Karns. “The size and scope of it, all the hospitality. Every square inch of that property is being utilized for something.”
To the players who call Bethpage their home for golf, it certainly feels that way. Years of Ryder Cup renderings finally emerged in real time this spring, directing a season’s worth of tee shots and “Warning” sign snapshots toward a growing backdrop of tents and pavilions. Many of the park’s 72 non-Black golf holes, which make up the bulk of its nearly 1,500 acres, pitch in as event hosts. The Red Course’s daunting opener, just on the other side of Black’s closing constellation of fairway bunkers, rests in hibernation beneath structures where fans will serenade players walking up No. 18. One and 18 on the Green have been buried under stands and staging grounds all summer. Yellow will spend September as part practice facility, part transportation depot.
That’s the charm of the People’s Country Club – the idea that Bethpage loyalists are happy to lease out their courses every few years to the international golf community, as long as the Black is treated with respect and returned to them in its familiar pristine form.
Jason Firestein of Commack logs roughly 60 rounds a year at Bethpage, with occasional overnights in the parking lot. “I like to see the pros hit the shots I’ve hit, play in the spots I’ve been in,” he says.
This summer, the sleepouts to play a Ryder Cup-ready course were, in Firestein’s words, “insanity.” Car lines blew past capacity a full day in advance. Publications from GOLF Magazine to The Washington Post chronicled the nights (sometimes two) that players from near and far spent in an atmosphere mixing the merry spirits of a tailgate party with the crude comforts and long-range planning of a camping weekend.
The frenzy has already spilled into the local economy. More than 12,000 rooms are booked for the tournament at Long Island hotels, according to Discover Long Island’s Sharon Wyman, who says the event will bring $150 million to the region. And a surge in demand for Ryder Cup and Bethpage-branded merchandise at the park boosted pro shop sales by 50 percent. “So many ‘bucket list’ golfers want something to take home from their experience here,” says Kelley Brooke, owner of Bethpage Golf Group.
The final foursomes to play the Black before its mid-August closure got a taste of what the pros will see as they approach the 18th green. A 5,000-seat grandstand, the centerpiece of the event’s massive buildout, forms a raucous viewing gallery around the first tee and 18th green and will launch to new heights what Karns calls the Ryder Cup’s “one-of-a-kind first-tee experience.” Most seats are available to general-admission ticketholders. To score one of them, fans need to be in position for a dramatic rope drop — think Disney World or Six Flags — at 6:00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Evan Crowder, Ryder Cup operations manager for the PGA of America, anticipates as many as 10,000 people will be waiting in a pre-admission “fan zone” where they can watch players warm up on the range and short-game area. The fans closest to the front will prep to make the mad dash to the grandstand and other viewing areas.
“That run to the first tee is when you really start to feel the excitement,” Crowder says. “You’ll have a DJ playing music. The spectacle really starts to come to life there.”
Ironically, the one thing that will be smaller in stature on the Black Course is what’s historically famous for its heft. Director of agronomy Andrew Wilson and course superintendent Mike Hadley expect the Black’s rough to stand around 2 1/4 inches, shorter than daily play and chopped down by half of the 4-plus inches typical for the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. “We ended last season at 2 1/4 just to see if we could do it,” Wilson says.
Bold shots and birdie opportunities are the goals. A new Ryder Cup tee cuts 30 yards off the opening hole, tempting players to fly its long rightward bend. It’s the type of shot Bethpage regulars don’t even dream of.
Later, a new bunker alignment on the par-5 13th reintroduces strategy to a tee shot that had lost its bite to soaring driver distances. Wider fairways on holes like six and seven open new angles and threaten to run balls right into sand traps. Of course, the People’s Country Club comes with a deep well of insider course knowledge.
“The 10th and 11th fairways are wider by 15 yards,” says John Schick, Bethpage resident since 1969 and Black Course vet for nearly as long. “Four of my drives in the fairway this season would have been in deep rough in the past.”
With no concerns over summertime burnout, Hadley aims to have putts moving at the “championship speed” that American captain Keegan Bradley favors. “Keegan likes fast greens and a long course,” Hadley said last month on The Road to the Ryder Cup podcast, cohosted by Bradley’s former St. John’s coach, Frank Darby. “Late September is a great time to get green speeds up. We can roll extra. We’re not worried about the heat and doing damage.”
Darby used to send Bradley and his St. John’s teammates to practice on the Black’s “short course” – code for holes three through 14, across Round Swamp Road and beyond watchful eyes. “(Former superintendent) Craig Currier was always great to my guys,” he says. “Keegan did that for the four years he was there. Nobody knew about it.” Darby’s ideal Ryder Cup Sunday has Bradley and the Americans clinching it back on the clubhouse side around holes 15 or 16.
Karns disagrees. His perfect Sunday is entirely free of suspense. After years of preparation, he’s pulling for a huge United States lead so Bethpage fans can spend the day in a jubilant spirit.