Why Bethpage Is American Golf’s Best Value (And Not Black!)

There is a major performance concern for peace in professional golf, but I’m here to tell you it’s a lost cause.

Even if professional golf ends his great struggle, he will not find peace. true Peace in professional golf takes more than a handshake agreement and a flowery press conference. It calls for a divorce from a far greater enemy than a sovereign wealth fund; an enemy so ingrained within the pro game that its participants have come to see him as an ally.

If you’re into golf wanted to find peace, if he’s serious about solving the problems that have sent television ratings plummeting and cynicism skyrocketing, there’s a place to look. It’s eight miles south of the Long Island Expressway, behind bike paths and big oak trees, a place where the only business is the passing of time and the only enemy is the night.

I once visited this place hoping to learn something essential about golf. I found it before I got to the box.

It soon became my golf home and before long, the center of my golfing soul.

This is the story of how I found myself in Bethpagethe best deal in golf.

***

Greatness in golf has many meaningsbut BEFORE is not one of them. The truly good things of golf can’t be bought any more than happiness, true love, or true achievement—and that, my friends, is pretty damn good.

The truth is that golf is not a sport or a game so much as it is an expression of the human experience. This makes golf, depending on your worldview, either a single, meaningless point on an axis stretching from the Big Bang to the end of time, or nothing less than the essence of our existence.

I happen to fall into the second camp, so I became a golf writer despite the violent rage I feel whenever I’m asked to take care of $10 million that a corporation or sovereign wealth fund is going to pay an already wealthy golfer embarrassing. finishing first in an established sponsorship competition. I believe golf mirrors life, plus or minus a few odd rules, and that’s a lesson I first learned at Bethpage.

As a Long Island kid with little access to the fabulous golfing riches that surrounded me, I stumbled upon golf at Bethpage, a state-owned and operated five-course golf course in a South Shore town called Farmingdale. My first visit came when I was 12 years old, not yet in high school, as a fan in 2009 US Open. That tournament, as with most of the other “big” tournaments hosted at Bethpage, was on the “Black Course,” a mighty 7,000-yard AW Tillinghast course, which to golf is what a life’s work is: work difficult.

Thankfully, in both cases, effort provides valuable perspective, and Bethpage lit up my golfing spirit at first sniff. I was amazed by it all: the fescue that grew unusually close to the fairway and grew chest-high; high stands filled to the gills with the faces of the proletariat class of golf; and, most of all, the knowledge that I too could walk the same fairways, hit the same golf shots and, if I was lucky, record the same score.

But that wasn’t the only beguiling opportunity as I wandered the Black. of others the opportunity stood empty in the rain that Friday, sagging under the weight of an extraordinary hospitality tent.

It was the Red Course – second fiddle to the Black Course – and it looked … great. In time I would learn it Was great – big enough to find itself in our brand new ranking of the best golf courses for $100 or lessand big enough to be my favorite value in the entire sport.

And how do I know?

I know because I have seen Red when the sun sets in April and rises in September. I’ve seen it when the conditioning is good—bloated, strong, and (relatively) fast—and I’ve seen it when the fourth box is still mostly mud. I’ve seen it too many times to count, which means I now see it everywhere—in the bend of trees on a walk through the woods, in the familiar undulations of my favorite jogging path in Manhattan, and in the small details of every other. golf course that came after it.

What makes Red great is not that it is a proper test of golf, but that it is. It boasts the most difficult opening hole in golf (a massive, roughly 500-yard par-4 on an elevated green in the photo above), an amazing collection of thought-provoking par-3s and 4s, and a series thorny but rateable par-4s. 5th – all through natural bunkers and strategic tee shots and a first-class risk-reward education. At close to 6,700 yards from the blue tees, Red is a grown man’s course, but at a par of 70, it owns a surprising number of local career bests, including this author’s.

It’s not perfect, but ask any Bethpage bar and they’ll tell you it’s better than that. A round in red is more sensitive than yellow, passable than blue, fat than green, and (one prays) nicer than black.

Bethpage’s Goldilocks Course may not yet be one of the top 100 tracks in the US, but I’ve been saying for years that it could be up there with a few million in splash and restoration. Although I’m very biased, it speaks volumes that anyone would enjoy that honor for a Red Economics and Valuation course.

Fortunately for those few of us who are still capable of wrangling a short time, Red is in no danger of top 100 fame any time soon, mainly for economic and rating reasons. Red does not need funding; it is permanently frozen for 200+ days a year, and on the other 165, it is either 95 percent filled or covered with snow. It also needs no praise; among the locals it is the most beloved course in Bethpage and it is not close.

The reason for this status is simple: it is a bargain. During a recent round at Red, a friendly partner named Justin shared his anxiety about an upcoming move from New York to his native California.

“I’m not about to pay overseas fees here again,” he said with a rueful smile.

With a walking rate of $43 for in-state residents on most days, and nearly double that for out-of-staters, I didn’t blame him.

***

I don’t have to scroll through my contacts long list to find the names of those who have shaped my golfing life at Bethpage.

In addition to Justin, a soon-to-be California native, there is Tim, a member of a friendly club in Rockville Center who invited me as a guest partner. And Bill, the sheet metal specialist from Malverne, who presented me with a custom made bottle opener on the 18th green. And John, whose 20-hour handicap five-hour death match with his brother-in-law could have pushed him to the brink of bankruptcy. And no less than a dozen other players whose shared memories have faded into the recesses of my mind, but whose spirits have nevertheless electrified mine.

For these reasons, I make sure to keep at least $10 in change before each round on Red. In almost every case, my foursome has been filled with serious players, serious personalities, or serious stories—all the many reasons, I’ve found, for a bit.

Partners like these have shaped my appreciation of Bethpage as my teenage years have flowed into adulthood, and as my appreciation of golf has shifted from a competitive pursuit to a philosophy. It’s harder to obsess over the new state of your game when you’re overwhelmed by the kindness of the honest-to-god stranger who wants your ball to a safe pass. It’s harder to care about a result when it’s not a derivative of value, but rather a reflection of a few hours completely removed from it. It’s harder to be bothered by the greed of professional golf when you’re surrounded by the abundance of those who play it recreationally.

Bethpage is not a bargain because of the golf course, price or setting. It’s a bargain because of sentiment.

In Bethpage, I am at peace.

You can contact the author at james.colgan@golf.com.

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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.