The real sin of the $750 Bethpage Ryder Cup tickets isn’t the price

The story of Bethpage Black began, fittingly, with a bargain.

It was 1933, and with the world embroiled in a Depression-era employment freeze, New York State commissioned a massive public park on Long Island to induce a thaw. To bolster public support for the project, legendary power broker Robert Moses pushed to develop a series of municipal golf courses on the land, including a top-level public course built explicitly compete with Pine Valley. The idea was noble, but it required a skilled hand—someone who knew not only how to manipulate the soil on a golf course, but who knew how to make a golf course. MEANING.

Thankfully, AW Tillinghast would break. One of the eclectic fathers of golf course design, Tillinghast was an unlikely choice for a public works project. He had spent most of the two decades before 1933 developing some of the world’s greatest golf courses, but then the Depression came and the demand for his work disappeared. Tillinghast was burning for fast cash, and when the Parks Department offered him a job consulting on Bethpage’s design process for $50 a day — a pittance for Tillinghast, even in those days — he accepted without question.

The Black Course finally opened in 1936 and Tillinghast was quickly hailed as a hero (along with the course designer/superintendent Joseph Burbeck). The course was a revelation and, at $2 on weekdays and $3 on weekends, it was perhaps the greatest bargain in public golf.

More or less, that’s how things remained for the 88 years since opening day at Bethpage Black. The rates have changed over the years – now up to $70 for New York State residentsand double that for overseas – but the value never wavered.

And neither do people.

Almost a century later, the latest chapter in Bethpage Black’s history began with a cash grab.

On Monday morning, word got out in the golf world: The 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black would be the most expensive iteration of the event ever staged — and possibly the most expensive golf event ever. At a staggering $749.51 for each of the three days of competition, the cost of a ticket to the Bethpage Ryder Cup would be almost seven times more expensive than a ticket to the PGA Championship at the same host venue in 2019, and prize equivalent of 11 competitive rounds played Black Course during high season. When to

The organizer for both events, the PGA of America, quickly defended the 581 percent price increase from 2019 — closer to the presale price for a potential World Series game between the Mets and Yankees ($1,056) than any golf event. – as a product of the convergence of market forces. New ticket prices, said the organizersmore accurately reflected the cost of hosting an event in the New York metro area, the time spent at the venue relative to other major sporting events, the access and proximity to star athletes afforded by a ticket, and the cost for which tickets are sold on third-party resale markets. Organizers also noted that the Ryder Cup prize money helped fund best-in-class experiences for ticket holders, such as a recent program that offers fans unlimited food and drink.

“We see ourselves as a Tier 1 event,” Ryder Cup director Bryan Harms told SiriusXM. “That’s the equivalent of a World Series or a Game 7 of the NBA Finals.”

But the organizers admitted that the award decision was not THOROUGHLY guided by the “Invisible Hand” of economic demand. The PGA of America also had to protect its financial interests as a for-profit organization. With only one Ryder Cup home every four years — the PGA of America and the DP World Tour split Ryder Cup hosting duties — 2025 represents a financial golden opportunity for the PGA of America. By raising prices and taking away a portion of third-party ticket revenue for themselves, the PGA of America could put on a better show by putting more money into reserves for future PGA initiatives — a proverbial Win-win.

“We got a lot of feedback,” Harms told GOLF.com. “We got to this point where we felt like, look, this is what we feel confident in.”

One would hope that the reactions required by the PGA of America extended beyond the literature of Adam Smith, for within the first five minutes the PGA could have learned of the dangers of the “Invisible Hand.” negative externalitiesand another word sometimes used to describe them.

Greed.

IT’S FREE TO CALL The PGA of America is greedy about Ryder Cup ticket prices, but not because it’s untrue. It is free because the word GREED has become a redundant adjective for golf in the same way spinner is an overused adjective for chip. these days, golf AND GREED go together like an overcooked hamburger and an Aquafina at the PGA Championship—ubiquitous and slightly mixed.

To call the PGA of America insatiable it means to point out the obvious and to point out what is true so eagerly and self-evidently somehow undermines all others unpleasant things that are less eagerly and less obviously (but no less clearly) true.

Uncomfortable truths like how we still don’t know what will happen to the additional $75 million in revenue generated by increased ticket prices (a conservative estimate). Interestingly, the PGA of America has yet to pledge any of that money to compensate Ryder Cup players.

Celebrity players are not paid to play in this event. In lieu of a payout, the PGA of America makes a charitable donation to a cause of each player’s choice. One wonders what Stefan Schauffele, father of PGA Championship winner and multiple Ryder Cupper Xander, thinks of the PGA of America collecting a extra eight figures on the back of his son’s free labor and “love of country.” Could it sound similar to his suggestion from Rome in 2023 that the players should “profit share”?

“Instead of being so opaque about it, they should disclose the numbers.” Stefan Schauffele said then. “And then we should go to the table and talk.”

Or are we talking about other uncomfortable truths, like the PGA of America saying that the only golf audience worth catering to in the New York area are those who can afford to spend a few thousand dollars in an afternoon alone? There is risk with this decision, and not just that which comes in bad PR. Has the PGA of America thought what it would do to the reputation of the Ryder Cup if Larry Luxury Box and his friends decide not to paint their faces and wake up at 4:30 a.m. on a Friday morning, leaving half empty the famous first tee stand? Have they considered how such a paying clientele might respond to the minor imperfections of a temporary golf tournament, like a 30-minute bus ride from the Jones Beach parking lots? And what will they say to golf fans when those fans realize their $750 ticket doesn’t include alcohol sales?

Individual concerns aside, there are questions the PGA of America needs to answer for the general public as well. Has the PGA considered what an overly corporatized, deeply sanitized environment in Bethpage might look like to golf fans who have seen their sport besieged by the same forces on a bullish scale for the past five years? And speaking of leaving, has the PGA considered what its decision will do to a large number of casual sports fans in New York during one of golf’s rare weeks of broad appeal? The PGA of America is right to see the Ryder Cup as a Tier 1 event (or something close to it), but Tier 1 ticket prices are not the only component. There is an implied responsibility to provide a Tier 1 streaming, Tier 1 security experience, Tier 1 traffic direction, and Tier 1 merchandising line.

Ultimately, though, these uncomfortable truths are just minor annoyances next to the main offense of these Ryder Cup ticket prices — an offense summed up so simply it almost sounds redundant: They’re doing it in Bethpage.

It feels trite to suggest that Bethpage exists on a plane above everything else in the world of golf. Like most other golf courses, The Black is a business with financial aspirations, cold economic realities, real strengths and weaknesses. But Bethpage Black represents much more than a golf course, because it speaks to something much bigger than golf.

Even today, Black is an exercise in radical, almost overwhelming inclusion. Any New Yorker can hit the fairways on the Black Course, as long as they have a set of clubs, a pair of legs and $70 to their name. Brush the course any afternoon and you’ll see this vision come to life – Fortune 500 executives and sheet metal workers; Finance brothers and golf professionals; friends and strangers. Tee times are hard to come by not because an invitation is complicated or the membership is small; they are a rarity because there are so many avid golfers and so few hours in the day. Bethpage does not believe in equality, she is the embodiment of it – rich or poor, big or small, somebody or nobody; you can play.

A $750 Ryder Cup ticket fundamentally contradicts this idea. It tells us that golf belongs to someone instead of everyone. This suggests that we understand that reality and not complain. It separates those who love golf from those who can afford it.

Bethpage has never been about the haves and have-nots. It gained its favor precisely because it rejects golf’s less worldly ideals of elitism and exclusivity. Installing these ideals for the Ryder Cup isn’t just an insult to everything Bethpage stands for—it’s a sign that the PGA of America never understood it in the first place.

Thankfully, the PGA of America was right about at least one thing: The cost of Ryder Cup tickets is a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

For $749.51 per person, you can experience Bethpage Black like no one has before—in body, but not in spirit.

You can reach the author IN james.colgan@golf.com.

James Colgan

Editor of Golf.com

James Colgan is a news and features editor at GOLF, writing stories for the website and magazine. He manages Hot Mic, GOLF’s media vertical, and leverages his on-camera experience across the brand’s platforms. Before joining GOLF, James graduated from Syracuse University, during which time he was a caddy (and smart) scholarship recipient on Long Island, where he is from. He can be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.