Course Review: Tough and testing, that’s Bethpage Black

Written by Neil White

“The Black Course Is An Extremely Difficult Course Which We Recommend Only For Highly Skilled Golfers.”

The notice next to the first tee of Bethpage Black would have better players than us, quivering in their golf shoes. 

Let’s hope Luke Donald’s European team isn’t as intimidated next year when it takes on the Americans in Long Island, New York, for the Ryder Cup.

Bethpage Black is a curiosity as a major venue because it is a municipal golf course run alongside four others at a venue run by the State of New York.

Priority for booking times is given to New York state residents, so one kindly registered and joined us and another local for our game. As a non-resident, the alternative would have been to have waited another couple of days to see if a time was available or nab one of the handful given to those who sleep in the vast car park.

Because we arrived on a wet day, three free times were still available on the Black, where golfers can play at the World’s 62nd-ranked course for just $145.

So, is it as hard as its reputation suggests? Well, yes, and no.

The course is long, its rough is penal but mid-handicappers get enough shots to score pretty well if they plot their way around.

Conservative strategy only occurred to Mrs W and me after a chastening opening nine in which we found ourselves trying to compensate for being unable to hit 250 yards with recovery shots beyond our respective abilities. The problem is that a sensible head has to be accompanied by a very accurate short game – a yard or two off can be the difference between delight and doom.

I was wondering what the fuss was about after the first two holes. The opener is a long dogleg par 4 around trees leading up to a green defended two large, fescue-topped bunkers on the left and right. Surrounding this and almost all the targets is gnarly, cloying, and tangly rough, which also frames the course’s narrow fairways. My ball buried itself deep in this horrible stuff on the second – a curving par 4 to a flag on top of a hill, so the second six of the day followed.

Deep chasms in front and behind the par-three third continued the menace on the third but I floated my iron approach to the left of the green and was only a ball-turn away from a birdie two. Apparently, the arresting sight of the par-5 4th convinced organisers that this was a suitable venue for a US Open.

The Black’s first Open was in 2002 and won by Tiger Woods, the only player to break par. I suspect other players may have succumbed on the 4th, one of the most intense holes I have played. My tee shot wandered down the left and the ball was only prevented from dropping into sand by a lump of fescue. I feared it was unplayable, but, egged on by one of our playing partners, I perched on the side of the trap, crashed a pitching wedge against the grass and heaved the ball about 50 yards forward.

This left a blind shot over a thick band of sandscrape to a half-moon fairway around some more hefty bunkers before a raised green. My fourth was a pitch that looked perfect but, to my dismay, the ball had run through and down a linksy fall-off. More of this Pine Valley-esque bunkering is seen down the right of the long par-4 5th, which weaves between forest on the left and right.

Again, I thought I had handled it deftly by chipping my third into the middle of a high blind green, only to fall into sand to its rear. A rare opportunity emerges over another sea of sand on the par-5 7th.

This falls from left to right before a straight fairway between traps to a relatively flat green. The removal of a tree on the right of the 8th opens out this par 3 over the only water on the course.

I tried to bring the tee-shot in from the hill on the right but because of the wet weather, it stuck a couple of yards short when I thought a par or better looked on. The back nine saw improved precision in my short game, which is just as well because the greens are not so flat.

Meanwhile, our big-hitting game organiser made the shot of the day with a four-hybrid out of the sand on the left of the 11th fairway to within three feet of the pin. He completed a superb birdie. For a public course, I was surprised by the lack of variety of tees at Bethpage Black.

This meant I was consistently challenged from the white tees but so was Mrs W who was hitting from golds that were regularly just in front of us.

The carries were often lengthy, as on the monster par-5 13th, over fescue before more meaty hits between sand up its 600+ yards. I was satisfied with a seven. In a way, the par-3 14th was my biggest disappointment because I struck the ball sweetly over a chasm and giant trap into the green but took three putts with no good reason.

Mrs W and I were neck-and-neck in a private game going into the 15th, another long, curving par 4 into a pedestal green over a deep bunker. I was on the green in three and was astonished when the ball arrived at my feet from 15ft below in the trap. Mrs W then plonked a 20ft putt in the hole for the finest sand save of her life. 

The final three holes will provide great drama in the Ryder Cup, beginning on the 16th, a mesmerising par-four that drops 60 feet from a tight tee. Our compadres fired way right and under-pressure pros may do the same.

But their nerves could be most tested on the par 3 17th, where my round descended into comedy. This is an iconic hole with a slither of green cut between three layers of bunkers. 

I fatted into the nearest one, dobbed into the second one and thinned into the one over the green. The blob left me a shot astray from the Mrs going into 18. The wow-factor finish is rounded off by the short par 4 18th with its pinched fairway between two bunker cascades.

The raised green above more traps could be an ultra-exciting finale as it was for us, with me requiring a 20-footer for the win and coming up short, leaving Mrs W with ten feet to polish me off. She missed and returned with our tie back to the clubhouse for a delicious steak sandwich and a dream of what it must be like to be on the hole-in-one honours boards which line its corridors.

Had we needed to be highly skilled around Bethpage Black? Nah – just a bit longer and more accurate.

About Neil White:

Neil White is a panellist for NCG Top 100s course rankings. Listen to Neil’s podcast The Golf Pilgrim here.

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