Golf on Long Island

What to know about Bethpage course schedules, closures and modifications ahead of the 2025 Ryder Cup

It's going to be a unique season at Bethpage State Park.  Unlike past years when the Black Course hosted a U.S. Open or PGA Championship before the summer officially arrived, the presence of late September's Ryder Cup will loom over the whole complex for the entirety of the playing season.  Ryder Cup festivities begin on September 23 and the tournament concludes on September 28.

Here's what you need to know about playing golf at Bethpage this spring and summer before the world's international superstars take over at the start of fall:

BLACK COURSE

The Black Course opens for the season on April 12 and is tentatively scheduled to close to the public from August 18 to October 3.  The course will operate under normal procedures until July 6.  From July 7 to August 17, Black will be walk-ups only with no tee times after 12:30 p.m.

GREEN and YELLOW COURSES

Bethpage Green opens for the season on March 15.  Both the Green and Yellow courses will operate with a normal schedule until August 17.  (See below for course modifications.)  Green and Yellow are tentatively scheduled to close to the public from August 18 to October 3. 

RED and BLUE COURSES

Bethpage Red opens for the season on April 1.  Both Red and Blue will operate with a normal schedule until August 17.  (See below for course modifications.)  From August 18 until early September, both courses will remain open for play until 2:00 p.m.  Red and Blue are tentatively scheduled to close to the public from either September 8 or September 15 to October 3.

That means once Bethpage Black closes for final Ryder Cup preparation on August 17, the only courses available for play will be Red and Blue, until their September closing date.

COURSE CONDITIONS

As noted here last fall, the rough on the Black Course will be shorter for the Ryder Cup than it's been for previous tournament play.  In fact, at the planned 2 1/4-inch height, the rough will be shorter than it is for regular public play (2 1/2 to 3 inches).  Black Course superintendent Mike Hadley said in October that the rough will be maintained short throughout the 2025 season.  This way there's no need to cut the entire course back before the Cup.

The only hole modification this offseason, according to park staff, involved moving the left-side bunker on #7 closer to the fairway.  This follows last winter's updates to the bunkering on #5 and #13.

TEMPORARY TEES

Some holes around the park will be shortened to accommodate all the facilities required for the event — merchandise tents, bus parking, full-size driving range and practice areas, and more.  Expect the holes closest to the clubhouse and Black Course to be impacted the most.

The following holes already have temporary tees in place:

• Yellow Course #9
• Yellow Course #10
• Green Course #18

The following holes will have temporary tees put in place sometime in May or June:

• Red Course #1
• Red Course #5
• Blue Course #1
• Green Course #1

TEMPORARY GREENS

A temporary green is currently in use on:

• Yellow Course #18

All scheduling is subject to change as the season progresses.  Bethpage suggests that all players check the park website, social-media outlets and email blasts for any updates to course availability.

2025 golf course reopening dates on Long Island

As most local golfers know, March is reopening month on Long Island.  Sure, it's still barely above freezing outside and the ground is mush, but as far as cold-weather players are concerned, that's what hand warmers and golf spikes are for. 

Long Island's seasonal golf courses are getting set to stick the pins back in the cups and unlock the pro-shop door.  By mid-month, many of them will be open for play, and it won't take much beyond 50 degrees to fill up that tee sheet.  When March flips to April, just about every golf course on Long Island will be sending groups out to the first tee.

The following is a list of tentative 2025 opening dates for Long Island's seasonal golf courses.  (Year-round courses remain open as the weather allows and are not included in this list.)  Courses will be added or updated as information becomes available.  Be sure to check back through March for the latest info.

*All dates listed below are subject to change.  Call the courses directly for updated dates and times.

2025 GOLF COURSE REOPENINGS:

• Poxabogue – March 10
• Sandy Pond Links – March 14
• Harbor Links - Championship Course – March 14
• Timber Point – March 14
• Bergen Point – March 14
• West Sayville – March 14
• Holbrook CC – March 14
• Brentwood CC – March 14 
• Bethpage Green – March 15
• Woods Course at Cherry Creek – March 21
• Harbor Links - The Lower Course (Executive) – March 28
• Bethpage Red – April 1
• Bethpage Black – April 12

DATES TBA:

• The Golf Club at Middle Bay 
• Eisenhower Red 
• Sumpwams Creek

[This post was updated on March 8, 2025.]

Bethpage Black and Red land in GOLF Magazine's Top 100 Courses You Can Play

Another list of top public golf courses, another chance for Bethpage State Park's marquee layout to shine.  Bethpage Black is featured near the top of the latest course ranking, this time GOLF.com/GOLF Magazine's 2024-2025 list of Top 100 Courses You Can Play, though for once the Black Course is forced to step back and cede some of the elite-tier spotlight to another course with Long Island roots.  Well...sort of.

GOLF posted its Top 100 last month, rating America's best public golf courses (and publicly accessible private clubs) from Pebble Beach at #1 to Wine Valley (#100) in Washington.  Bethpage Black and Red, New York State's only representatives on the list, came in at #5 and #65.

The Black Course cracking the top five of a national ranking is noteworthy, especially when it's slotted directly in front of headliners like Kiawah Island, TPC Sawgrass and Bandon Dunes.  But it's the course ahead of the Black at #4 that's of unique local interest.  The Lido — the Tom Doak reincarnation of the long-lost Long Island club — has been a hit since it opened at Sand Valley in Wisconsin in 2023.  (GOLF ranked Lido #68 in its Top 100 World list during its debut season.)  The course is nearly a down-to-the-inch replica of the vaunted C.B. Macdonald club in Lido Beach once considered among the greatest American golf courses.  For a brief period from the Black's opening in 1936 to Lido's demise in 1942, the two courses were active at the same time, separated by just 20 miles.

Of the two existing Long Island courses on the list, GOLF writes: "The Black enjoys one of the great routings, highlighted by the masterful way Tillinghast placed the fairways and greens from the second hole in a valley all the way through the dogleg left ninth.  The par-5 fourth and its iconic cross-bunkering is a world-beater."

The Red Course "more than holds its own, albeit with much less fanfare than its fellow Tillinghast design.  There’s no warning sign at the first tee like at the Black, the rough is friendlier and the bunkers less dramatic (except for the fistful that split the fairway on the par-4 13th).  But locals know none of that makes the Red a pushover."

2024 closing dates at Long Island's public golf courses

The handful of public golf courses that close for the Long Island winter typically go dark between the end of Thanksgiving weekend and the middle of December.  Some might hang on until Christmas week if warm weather lingers, but usually the only courses still open by then are the ones that welcome players year-round.

So, with that said, now's the time to get in the final swings on Long Island's seasonal golf courses, otherwise your next tee times at places like Eisenhower Red and Timber Point will be in early spring.  With the exception of Bethpage Red and Black, all of the Island's seasonal courses reopen by the end of March.

The following golf courses will close for the 2024 season in the coming weeks:

• Bethpage Red – December 1
• Bethpage Green – December 1
• Bergen Point – December 1
• West Sayville – December 1
• Middle Bay – December 1
• Eisenhower Red – December 8
• Holbrook Country Club – December 15
• Brentwood Country Club – December 15
• Timber Point – December 15
• Sandy Pond – December 31
• Cherry Creek - Woods Course – TBD/mid-December
• Sumpwams Creek – TBD/mid-December
• Bay Park – TBD/mid-December
• Harbor Links – TBD/mid-December
  
• Christopher Morley Park -- TBD

Some courses have already closed for 2024, including:

• Bethpage Black

Check back daily as other courses are added.  And for more information on Long Island's winter season, stay tuned for our annual Winter Golf On Long Island primer.

Bethpage Black to close November 11, Red and Green to follow

Two weeks to go this season at Bethpage Black before the vaunted course closes down for winter and begins the stretch run toward the Ryder Cup spotlight.  When it opens again next spring, it will be rocking shorter rough, possibly some wider fairways and maybe a few other new tweaks.

The last day to play the Black Course is Monday, November 11.  Its two neighbors, the Red Course and Green Course, will stay open through November and close at the end of play on Sunday, December 1.  As usual, the Blue and Yellow courses will remain open through the winter, weather permitting.

These final two weeks will represent one of the last stretches of status quo before next year's tournament and a 2025 season that will be far from normal.  The Black Course will close six weeks before the Ryder Cup, sometime in mid-August, and pavilions, practice areas, parking and other tournament facilities will occupy space on the other four courses, presumably for much of the summer.  A schedule will be released early next year, but you can expect nine-hole play and modified 18-hole layouts during peak season.

Call the Bethpage golf office at (516) 249-0700 for offseason info on course conditions and availability.

Expect short rough and deep tees at next year's Ryder Cup, say Bethpage, Cup officials

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).

Bethpage Red, Montauk Downs highlighted on Golf Magazine's affordability list

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.]

Bethpage summer and fall aeration dates

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:

• Blue Course:  August 26–27
• Green Course:  September 10–11
• Yellow Course:  September 18–19
• Red Course:  October 8–9
• Black Course:  October 15–17

Be sure to call the Bethpage golf office at (516) 249-0700 for the latest info on course availability.

Bethpage, Montauk Downs listed among Golfweek's 2024 Best Courses You Can Play

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.]

Citing "unprecedented demand," Bethpage announces changes to reservation system and tee-time policies

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."