Prepare to see massive drives and aggressive lines at next fall's Bethpage Black Ryder Cup.
The Black Course's notoriously lush rough, what the pros typically encounter during championship play at Bethpage, will be rocking quite the buzzcut when the Ryder Cup tees off nearly a year from now in late September 2025. More notably, it will be clipped shorter than what sleep-in-the-car Bethpage golfers experience when they set out on their Tuesday morning foursome.
At a press event for members of the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association on Tuesday, longtime Black Course superintendent Mike Hadley said he expects the rough will be cut to a "thick but more playable" 2 1/4 inches during the three-day international tournament. Bethpage Black's rough typically measures 2 1/2 to 3 inches during regular public play, Hadley said, and more than 4 inches for events like the U.S. Open and PGA Championship.
"With shorter rough you get more birdies, which means more action," Hadley said.
The relatively tame rough will accommodate Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley and the "team of bombers" he is expected to put together on the American side, one that has little interest in gouging irons out of a 5-inch tangle. Bradley also wants to tee off from as deep as the holes allow, Hadley said, the only exception being the par-3 17th. There, a stadium-style setup will include bleachers on the back of the teebox that envelop the American and European players and set up a potentially raucous conclusion to the tournament.
At #1, the newly built lower tee should coax many players, especially the Americans, to take a run at the green. The official Ryder Cup yardage on the dogleg-right opener is 397 yards.
Ryder Cup championship director Bryan Karns said a spacious grandstand will occupy the current #1 teebox and wrap completely around the first tee and 18th green. The setup will elevate the Ryder Cup's "one-of-a-kind first-tee experience," Karns said.
In addition to the tweaks already made on the Black Course, specifically this spring's bunker expansion and relocation on holes 5 and 13, Hadley said the sixth and seventh fairways could be widened per Bradley's preference. Rough will be maintained short throughout the 2025 season, meaning Long Island's public players will get a rare break on the course during the spring and early summer.
Bethpage park director Scott Matson said the Black Course will likely close six weeks prior to the Ryder Cup. Plans and schedules related to the other four Bethpage golf courses will be determined early next year.
The 2025 tournament will be played from September 26–28 and is the second Ryder Cup to be hosted at a New York course (Oak Hill, 1995).
Stars aligned in recent years to free Long Island's original Lido Club from grainy black-and-white photos and resurrect it halfway across the country at Wisconsin's Sand Valley. Now it seems they might be positioning themselves again to inspire another Golden Age rebirth, one that stays right here on the Island's south shore.
The restoration of Timber Point, for decades a far-off fantasy confined mostly to circles of golf historians and design enthusiasts, is making its way toward reality. Peter Ganley, assistant to Suffolk County Parks Commissioner John Giannott, is leading an effort that would bring the course a century back in time to golf's architectural Golden Age, when Timber Point was a sand-swept 18-hole course designed by Charles Alison. Golf writer Daniel Wexler once wrote that Timber Point would be a top-25 American golf course if it still existed in its original form.
Specific details on designers, project costs and timelines are unavailable or confidential at the moment, but the next step in what has been a positive process to date, according to Ganley, is a meeting with Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine and other political officials. The plan is to raise enough money from foundations and private sources to limit the costs taken on by Suffolk County.
"We don't want to use county money," Ganley says. "The intent is to keep Timber Point an affordable golf course."
A full restoration of the course includes revitalization of the site's natural wetlands, which were filled in when the course was remodeled in the 1970s, a decision that would never be permitted today by New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation, Ganley says. The DEC has been "exceptionally understanding" so far regarding plans for the property, he says, adding that the restored wetlands would alleviate water concerns and decrease pesticide use.
Ganley envisions a restored Timber Point as a world-class, championship-level public golf destination that is Suffolk County's version of Bethpage Black. "Timber Point is so intriguing because of what it once was," he says. Of the course's 18 original holes, 12 remain in place on the current Blue and Red courses, including the famed "Gibraltar" par-3 and the subsequent bayfront par-4s. The course would be brought back to its 1920s design and likely its sandier-on-the-edges layout, lengthened in spots to accommodate the modern game. Yardage from the tips will potentially be in the vicinity of 7,500 yards. Off the course, upgrades to the historic clubhouse, marinas and other facilities are planned. Added perks like a par-3 short course are also under consideration.
For years, historians and golf-architecture followers have weighed the potential of a Timber Point restoration. Designers have walked the grounds and drawn up detailed building plans. In 2021, The Fried Egg listed Timber Point as one of America's "sweet 16 of golf courses we'd love to see restored to their original glory."
"So maybe Timber Point’s best move would be to shed nine holes and restore as many of the rest as possible. After all, there’s certainly a demand for great accessible golf on Long Island," wrote The Fried Egg's Andy Johnson.
Timber Point has been a 27-hole facility since the early 1970s, when Suffolk County took control of the once-exclusive private club and hired William Mitchell to build an additional nine holes. Under the proposed redesign, the biggest change to the existing layout would be the elimination of Mitchell's White Course. In its place, restored native wetlands and several reoriented holes would connect the interior and waterfront portions of the course. During the course's early-1900s prime, players emerged from Timber Point's wooded front nine onto a sprawling sandscape with Great South Bay in the distance. The tenth played toward the bay, and #11, a wind-aided par-4 with multiple fairways, brought players back to the current "Harbor" hole — #2 on the Blue Course. Ganley says the revival of Alison's 10th and 11th holes would be "special."
"County Executive Romaine wants to create a masterpiece — that's the plan," Ganley says. "It will be a nice giveback by Suffolk County to the public."
[PICTURED: TOP TWO — The famed Gibraltar par-3 today and as it appeared in the early 20th century, when Timber Point was more of a sandy links than a parkland course. BOTTOM TWO — Modern and early views of the Harbor par-3, currently #2 on the Blue Course.]
Two of Long Island's top public golf courses known for being hard on scorecards recently earned some praise from Golf Magazine for going easy on golfers' wallets.
Bethpage State Park's Red Course and Montauk Downs both made the cut in Golf Mag's 2024 list of America's best golf courses for $100 or less, "where memorability meets affordability," as determined by Golf's course raters and editors. The list features 101 golf courses in four different regions of the country where peak-season weekend walking rates do not exceed $100. The selected courses "represent exceptional bang for the buck."
In addition to the green-fee requirement, selected courses must be open to the public and offer "the kind of golf experience you’d recommend to a friend."
Of the 19 golf courses representing the Northeast region, five are from New York State. Bethpage Red and Montauk Downs are joined by En-Joie in Endicott, Saratoga Spa State Park in Saratoga Springs and Seven Oaks in Hamilton. The Northeast has the lowest regional representation, mostly due to high costs around metropolitan areas, according to Golf editors. Approximately 40 percent of the featured courses are municipally owned. List editors praised "those public officials who understand the value and importance of funding exceptional public golf."
Bethpage Red and Montauk, of course, are fixtures on another annual list, the "Best Courses You Can Play" ranking published by Golfweek. That list highlights the best publicly accessible golf courses in all 50 states. In the 2024 Golfweek ranking, the Red Course landed at #6 with Montauk Downs one spot behind at #7.
[PICTURED: The signature par-3 12th at Montauk Downs.]
Two years into its rebrand in Riverhead, Sandy Pond Links continues to spruce up its nine holes on Roanoke Avenue all while it cuts the ribbon on a newer and much shorter 18 right next door.
The first of two planned attractions at Sandy Pond made its debut last week, a state-of-the-art miniature golf course complete with in-play waterworks, a snack bar and a locally brewed house beer. Sandy Pond's new clubhouse, the second development in the works on the north end of the property, is tentatively scheduled for a 2026 grand opening.
On the course, crews remain busy installing new irrigation and refurbishing Sandy Pond's nine greens. When new ownership took over during the 2022-23 offseason, much of their focus was on restoring the greens to their original size. Time and maintenance changes had reduced the greens to small, circular targets, far from what co-owner Brian Stark recalled from his early days living near and working on the course. "You can still see areas where the contours were lost, and how the greens have shrunk significantly over time," Stark told Golf On Long Island in 2023. "They used to have more character and pin positions."
The most startling change at the moment is the rerouting of the course to accommodate the new starter's booth, currently housed at the mini-golf course until it's eventually relocated to the clubhouse. Players now start on the former ninth hole, continue to the old opener and finish on what had long been #8. Along the way they'll pass the landmark red shack, which will likely stay in place. Players will also have access to a patio near the first tee that's lined with Adirondack chairs, yard games and even a mini version of the iconic Big Duck down the road in Flanders. The snack bar is stocked with a house IPA from Riverhead's Long Ireland Brewery, and cupholders built into each mini-golf hole sign serve as handy beer caddies.
Co-owner Earl Truland says the mini-golf 18 will be a family-friendly destination that doubles as a community gathering spot and a vehicle for revenue to cover upgrades on the par-3 course. The mini golf includes uphill and downhill holes and a series of waterfalls, one of which flows into an in-play stream that carries balls under a bridge and onto the tenth green.
"We've had people tell us they'd love to play mini golf while they wait to tee off," Truland says. "Now instead of passing by when we have leagues on Wednesday mornings, they can come in and spend time here before they play."
Plans for Sandy Pond's future clubhouse include a simulator room, a small bar and food service, Truland says. The structure still needs approval form the Town of Riverhead, and ownership hopes to break ground by spring 2025.
For more on the planned changes at Sandy Pond Links, see this post from January 2023.
Thinking about fall course aeration is depressing when it's still the heart of summer, but you can't ignore the fact that seasonal maintenance is just around the corner. And since most of the aeration at Bethpage will be done during what's technically summer, we can call the brief two-day closures "summer breaks" if it makes us feel any better about the calendar.
First to close for conditioning late next month will be the Blue Course. Don't worry about availability on the Black Course — it won't close for aeration until October.
Here is the full aeration schedule for the park's five golf courses:
Be sure to call the Bethpage golf office at (516) 249-0700 for the latest info on course availability.
Street names can give clues about a community's past. That's especially true with golf courses. When Long Island streets are tagged with golf-related terms, it often means that buried beneath sidewalks and front lawns are the remains of a long-forgotten (or fondly remembered) course.
This series of posts looks back at courses that have been lost — some for a few years, some close to a century — and whose presence is only marked by what developers scratched on road maps and signs. To see other courses in the "Street Names: The Ghosts of Long Island Golf's Past" series, click the links at the bottom of the post.
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Tucked away amid winding, wooded roads in western Suffolk County is a small, newly built residential community made up of nearly two-dozen luxury homes. The homes, each carrying a price tag comfortably north of $2 million, stand tall and glamorous along a pair of dead-end streets. By the sound of it, the developer in charge is not the type to lay up on par-5s.
Appropriately, the two streets — Long Drive Court and Eagle Court — end at cul-de-sacs of the exact shape and size of a putting green. From beginning to dead end, or let's call it tee to green, Long Drive is laid out like a double-dogleg par-5, roughly 500 yards in total. The only hiccup in the planning is that Eagle Court runs the length of a mere par-3.
And, coincidence or not, the development, titled Oak Hill Estates, shares its name with the renowned Rochester, New York golf club and famed championship venue.
Just a few years ago, though it wasn't yet Oak Hill Estates, the property was home not only to long drives and eagles but a dogleg par-5 oddly similar to what is now Long Drive Court. Back then, local golfers knew the site as Dix Hills Golf Club, the lengthier, more challenging alternative to the nine-hole Dix Hills Park Golf Course nearby. It was a par-35 with nine holes totaling around 2,600 yards.
The non-municipal beginner course has become an endangered species on Long Island, but before it closed in 2012, Dix Hills GC filled that niche across six decades. Built in the 1960s, Dix Hills was bookended by par-5s, and a series of short par-4s and unique par-3s filled out the middle. Its most prominent feature was the deep gully that cut across the front section of the course. Shots to the green on holes #3 and #5 needed to carry the pit or settle somewhere far below. It also featured deep, sticky rough that complicated what were otherwise simple holes. Like a lush, well-fed (future) Oak Hill lawn, the rough could snatch and turn a clubhead with ease.
Dix Hills' vibe was quaint and laid-back. An old-fashioned cottage with shuttered windows served as the clubhouse, shaded and nestled comfortably beneath tall trees. Players parked in a gravel driveway out front. The course, rising and falling over the hills and densely wooded in spots, had a pastoral feel.
The par-3s at Dix Hills were certainly diverse. The tiny fourth could be mistaken for a sled hill had there not been a green at the bottom. A generous 116 yards on the scorecard, the hole dead-ended abruptly at a fenced corner of the property. Ahead at #5, short or middle irons needed to clear the gully to reach a little green ringed by thick rough. And #8, listed at 239 yards, played nearly as long as the course's par-4s.
Quietly, with little notice to anyone beyond the inner circle of Dix Hills-area players, the course closed up shop in 2012. For more than two years it sat in a state of decay — behind the roadside entrance sign, weeds overtook the gravel driveway and obscured the empty cottage. By 2015, the future Oak Hill development was formally announced and broke ground on the site.
The course is remembered as a place where local players got their initial taste of golf. And its beginner-friendliness wasn't confined to its casual routing and vibe. One of Dix Hills' local rules — in the course's later years, at least — said bad misses to the right on the two par-5s (as in over the trees onto adjacent holes) could be picked up and dropped on the correct side of the tree line with no penalty.
All the more reason to go hard after long drives and eagles.
[PICTURED — TOP: Dix Hills' shaded cottage clubhouse. LEFT: Next to the clubhouse, #3 green sat behind a deep gully. The course's dense rough was cut close to the greens. BOTTOM: Dix Hills, as seen shortly before its closing in 2012, with the present-day roads depicted. (Image credit: Google Earth.) Long Drive Court is laid out on nearly the exact footprint of the par-5 ninth. Also, the course's 2009 scorecard.]
SEE OTHER STREET-NAME POSTS:
Part 1: Cedar Point/Meadowlawn/Westwood — North Woodmere
Part 2: The Lido Club — Lido Beach
Part 3: Valley Stream Country Club — Valley Stream
Part 4: Sayville Golf Club — Sayville
Part 5: Riverhead Country Club — Riverhead
Part 6: Mill Pond East — Medford
The Long Island Golf Junkies players group, one of the largest and most active groups in the region, will hold a July Social outing next month at The Hamlet Golf and Country Club in Commack. Event date is Monday, July 15 with a shotgun start scheduled for 10:00 a.m. The LIGJ outing is open to all players.
Entry fee is $155 per golfer for 18 holes and cart. Format is individual stroke play with contests for closest to the pin and longest drive, plus raffles and prizes. Visit the LIGJ website to reserve spots for singles and groups and for full registration guidelines and details.
The Hamlet is a private club redesigned in the 1990s by Stephen Kay. It is a par-70 with heavily bunkered fairways and greens and several prominent water hazards.
LIGJ hosts several formal outings, casual rounds and social/networking meet-ups each season at both public courses and private clubs. Interested local golfers can become members via the Long Island Golf Junkies Facebook group.
There are certainties in Long Island golf life — group photos at the Black Course warning sign, wind at Montauk Downs, and Bethpage and Montauk ranked highly in Golfweek's list of the region's top public golf courses.
Golfweek's 2024 Best Courses You Can Play rankings were published earlier this month and Bethpage Black finds itself on familiar ground atop the local list, followed closely by its next-door neighbor Bethpage Red and its New York State sister course at Montauk Downs. The Best Courses You Can Play list ranks the elite publicly accessible courses in all 50 states. The three courses are typically locks for New York's top eight with the Red Course and Montauk Downs jockeying for position. This year the Red Course at #6 edged out Montauk by a spot.
Also of local interest, Bally's Ferry Point (formerly Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point) in the Bronx is ranked third behind only the Black Course and Leatherstocking in Cooperstown.
Bethpage Black is featured prominently on Golfweek's broader lists as well. The Black moved up one spot to #9 on the national Best Courses You Can Play list, jumping ahead of the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island. It also held its #26 spot on the Best 200 Classic Courses list, which ranks public and private courses built before 1960. That list showcases Long Island's enormous depth of internationally renowned golf courses, with three courses in the top 10 (Shinnecock Hills, National Golf Links and Fisher's Island) and a total of 15 courses overall.
For many years, Golfweek included a fourth Long Island course in its annual Best You Can Play — Tallgrass Golf Course in Shoreham. Tallgrass is gone, of course, but another "lost" course with local ties — sort of — did crack the list. The resurrected Lido at Sand Valley in Wisconsin lands at #15 on the national list and #2 in the state. That course is a nearly identical replica of C.B Macdonald's original Lido Club located on Long Island's south shore from 1917 to 1942.
For more on the three Long Island publics, including a Closer Look breakdown of Red #13 (and Tallgrass #8, just for old time's sake), check out the course flyovers via the above links.
[PICTURED: Bethpage Black #5 in spring 2024.]
Bethpage State Park has heard the ongoing complaints about the fairness and circumvention of its tee-time reservation policies and is now taking steps to address them.
In an email distributed earlier today, Bethpage announced several changes to its reservation system and policies, all scheduled to go into effect next Monday, June 24. The main change, according to the email, is the creation of a new booking type called "Verified NYS Resident - Bethpage," which will continue to allow tee-time reservations up to seven days in advance. In order to make this change, the park conducted a months-long audit of its reservation system and removed all duplicate golfer accounts. Residents in good standing will be automatically reclassified under the new verified booking type.
Starting next week, however, any new registrants, plus golfers who have been locked out due to multiple accounts or violations, will have to verify their resident account by emailing a copy of their NYS driver's license or identification card to the park.
The park cited "unprecedented demand for tee times" as motivation for the system change as well as other policy updates. Players will now be restricted to eight cancellations in a calendar month to limit the ability to make and transfer tee times. "Unfortunately, we have seen a trend of many users reserving tee times with no intent of using them, but instead booking for friends, family members and playing partners by trying to coordinate those cancellations," the email said.
Reservations on the Red Course will be limited to one every 14 days, similar to the current restriction on the Black Course, where tee times are limited to one every 28 days.
"We know some of these changes may cause some initial consternation amongst the golfing public," the email said, "but we are hopeful that these changes may allow more users to obtain reservations moving forward."
A development plan that would have built 28 additional homes at Stonebridge Golf Links and Country Club in Hauppauge and shortened its 18-hole golf course into abbreviated nines has been withdrawn by ownership, according to Newsday. All that remains now are lingering questions and concerns about the future of the current golf course.
Newsday's Jean-Paul Salamanca reported last week that Stonebridge representatives sent a letter of withdrawal dated May 7 to the Town of Smithtown's Planning Board, roughly six weeks after a public hearing in front of the board and members of the community. At that March 20 meeting, attorney David Altman and Islip-based architect Jerry Rumplick presented a plan for new houses along Stonebridge's western perimeter. To build the proposed homes, Stonebridge asked the planning board to consider amending the longtime covenants that restrict new development on the site.
The most notable exchange took place near the end of the meeting when board member Rick Lanese pressed Altman to explain how Smithtown residents would benefit from a plan that adds housing to an environmentally sensitive site and negatively impacts the existing Stonebridge course. Altman said they benefit because the alternative would be total loss of the golf course.
Now that the plan has been withdrawn, that back-and-forth between Altman and the board takes on much greater significance. Stonebridge representatives declined to comment to Newsday about the withdrawal, Salamanca reported, and Altman has not responded to questions about the golf course from Golf On Long Island.
Stonebridge replaced and redesigned the former Hauppauge Country Club in 1999, at which time covenants were put in place to limit future additions to the 105-home residential community and changes to club membership and the golf course itself. The two golf courses have occupied the Veterans Highway site since the 1950s.
Residents and neighbors spoke out against the plan at the March 20 meeting, citing concerns over the course modifications, environmental impact, proximity to the adjacent county park and decline in home value. Under the proposed plan, new homes would have replaced the 17th and 18th holes, and the western half of the current course would have been reduced to an executive-length nine-hole layout. The eastern half likely would have remained as a separate full-length nine.
Stonebridge's course design pays tribute to renowned early-1900s designers C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor and Charles Banks. Macdonald biographer and historian George Bahto redesigned the previous Hauppauge course to include replicas of holes typically found at famous American and European clubs, making it unique among Long Island's roster of public golf courses. The 17th hole, which would have been destroyed under the housing proposal, is modeled after Macdonald's "Eden" par-3s. Other replicas include the Redan at #4, Biarritz at #7 and Hog's Back green at #16.
For more on the course, see the Stonebridge flyover.
