Was one of the largest golf courses in the United States taken over by … robots?
Friday morning, New York State Office of Inspector General released a month-long report on the state of the tee time system at Bethpage State Park, examining allegations of software bots and tee time resellers plaguing the municipal golf haven (and the last host of the Ryder Cup) for years. The investigation, which began after a special investigation into the tee time system by golf writer Kevin Van Valkenburg, aimed to understand why reservation irregularities had become an accepted part of the state park’s online reservation system among golfers at each of the park’s five golf courses. Specifically, the investigation sought to answer whether tee time “bots” — or software programs designed to collect times faster than any human user — were to blame for the irregularities, Van Valkenburg said. There is no stretch podcast the first suspect.
Nine months after Van Valkenburg’s first report, the IG’s office report found that bots pose a “serious threat” to the integrity of the Bethpage Tee Time system, although the Inspector General was unable to find any concrete evidence of bot use.
The IG’s office produced a wealth of unusual data in the report, including a tranche of tee time data for the period between April and August 2024. According to the report, more than half of all tee times booked at Bethpage’s five golf courses (57,587 of 105,000, or 55 percent) and nearly sixty percent of those booked on the legendary Black Course (9,462 of 16,365, or 57 percent), resulted in cancellations during those five months. Even if this data point made it impossible to determine the cause, the unusually high number suggested irregularities with part of the tee timing system.
The report found no evidence of tee time “resellers,” or those illegally reserving schedules and reselling them at a higher price, but the unusually high number of cancellations showed there were loopholes that could be exploited — and maybe were being exploited – by bad actors.
“This data may suggest that some users are exploiting a loophole to avoid Bethpage’s ban on transferring tee times,” the report said. “For example, if a golfer books a tee time that he wants to transfer to another golfer despite this prohibition, the first golfer can cancel his reservation at an out-of-hours time (for example, 3:00 a.m.), so the second golfer can try to claim it when the reservation is re-released in the system.”
Ultimately, the IG’s office determined that the tee time bots were a “serious threat to the integrity of the booking systems” and recommended a series of changes aimed at ensuring fair access for all who book time on Bethpage by discouraging (or completely removing) the software programs from the system. A specific option is called a login verification system ID.me which is often used by other branches of New York State government, would help validate any time booked through the system before it is finalized.
These changes may sound familiar to New York-based golfers: They were many of the same changes implemented by the New York State Parks Department over the past several months. At the beginning of this year, the department established stricter rules regarding cancellations and the upfront payment of a “booking fee” in an effort to discourage bad actors. The department then doubled down on that approach in the days after the Ryder Cup, announcing the creation of a two-factor authentication system that would ensure all tee time reservations were executed by human beings.
The drama surrounding the Bethpage Parks timing system has increased in 2025 as Bethpage Black has welcomed the attention of the golf world in a historically busy season of play surrounding the Ryder Cup. As the People’s Country Club prepared for its moment in the spotlight, wait times for parking at the fabled Black Course stretched to two days in some cases.
In the end, the Inspector General’s office said it was the spirit of THESE players looking for serious action to defend against bots.
“If left unaddressed, such use of bots risks eroding public trust, limiting equal access to appointment times and creating the perception that the system favors those who can use technology over those who follow normal booking procedures,” the report said. “For these reasons, adopting safeguards against bot activity is essential to maintaining the integrity of the system and fair access for all players.”
