Mother Nature washed out Opening Day at Bethpage Red with a soggy April Fools' joke that saturated the course, much like the cold and snow that Old Man Winter whipped up to lop off six weeks of offseason golf and maintenance work. Bethpage Red instead reopened for the 2021 season yesterday under a stiff breeze, and the Black Course is on schedule to open April 15.
Despite those weeks of sitting snow, "the winter treated the courses fairly well," says Andrew Wilson, director of agronomy at Bethpage. "No winter damage to the greens, which is always the major concern."
In fact, much of the work this winter focused on residual cleanup from last summer's Tropical Storm Isaias, which caused extensive tree damage around the park when it swept through in August. Crews pruned or removed affected trees, including a large oak on Red #1.
Returning players will notice some minor changes on the Black Course when it opens this month. The tall native grass surrounding the lobed greenside bunker on #2 has been replaced with bluegrass sod and will be mowed at regular rough height. This change makes the area more manageable for players and staff, Wilson says, while also allowing for other irrigation tasks to be completed near #2 green and #3 tee.
Black Course superintendent Mike Hadley oversaw the expansion and resodding of walking paths around the course. "Increasing width on the paths, particularly the holes with native grass from tee to fairway, was a request of the PGA of America that we can slowly accomplish over the next few seasons," Wilson says. Bethpage Black is scheduled to host the Ryder Cup in 2025.
Less obvious to players are drainage improvements made on the #18 fairway bunkers, including the discovery of a jammed drainage pipe. "A much-needed infrastructure project," Wilson says.
Elsewhere, a new back tee is open on the eighth hole of the Yellow Course, offering a new look on the drive at the short par-4. "Adding a new back tee is a bit of a novelty for us," Wilson says. "We've been adding forward tees the last few years, which have been popular with our shorter hitters."
The six lost weeks of winter scuttled plans for one additional tee project that would have been very noticeable to Red Course players. Back in the fall Wilson posted a photo of a newly built forward tee on Red #13, a split-fairway par-4 with a large bunker complex in the center of the fairway. Due to follow was a renovation of the main tee that would raise the box by several feet and offer players a slightly elevated glimpse of the diverging fairways. As Red players know, many of the hole's features are hidden from the current tee. But winter conditions took that project off the agenda, at least for now.
Wilson credits superintendents Hadley, Vincent Herzog, Erik Feldman, Eric Newell, Hamilton Lopes, Shawn Brownell, Ryan Murphy and their maintenance crews for doing the heavy lifting in prepping the courses while also battling the realities of the coronavirus era. "Our staff was impacted, some quarantined, all while rounds were up last year," Wilson says.
"We hope to have less disruption this year and more opportunity to improve bunkers, tees and other parts of the courses."
View photos of the offseason and ongoing renovations by visiting Wilson's and Bethpage Golf's Twitter pages at @Greensideup17 and @BethpageGolf.
[Photos above courtesy of Andrew Wilson.]
