What's all the fuss about?

The five courses at Bethpage State Park were created as a W.P.A. project during the Depression of the 1930s. Over 1800 workers transformed 1475 acres of rolling woodlands into a parkland devoted to recreation with picnic areas, playing fields, horse trails and tennis courts in addition to the five golf courses. A.W. Tillinghast, who has designed some of America's greatest golf courses, designed three of the courses at Bethpage. Bethpage Black was the final course he designed in his luminous career.

Bethpage Black is golf on the grand scale. Bunkers are huge; front nine is wooded completely surrounded by trees back nine has some characteristic of Scottish links style  but the holes are wide open. From the championship tees, the Black Course can play at 7,295 yards. Bethpage Black is on every compiler's list of best courses in America - public or private. A sign on the first tee greets the player: "The Black Course is an extremely difficult course which we recommend only for highly skilled golfers."

To prepare Bethpage Black for the upcoming United States Open in 2002, the united States Golf Association financed a $2.7 million restoration. 

ARCHITECTS

Designed by A.W. Tillinghast and opened on 30 May 1936, the Bethpage Black is one of five golf courses on the State property, the others being the red, green, yellow and blue courses. The United States Golf Association (USGA) funded a $3 million renovation of the Black Course by Rees Jones, which begun in 1997 and was completed in 1998, leaving plenty of time to prepare for the US Open.

BETHPAGE STATE PARK

Bethpage is the largest public golf facility in the world, with five 18-hole golf courses centered around one clubhouse. A.W. Tillinghast built three of the five golf courses (Black, Red and Blue), and re-designed the initial Lenox Hills (Green) course. The Lenox Hills (Green) course was opened in 1923. The last (Yellow) was opened in 1958. Until 2002, it had never played host to a national USGA or PGA Tour event.

BETHPAGE BLACK

The Black Course, one of Bethpage State Park’s five courses, is the longest golf course, at 7,214yds, in US Open history. It is also the first US Open to feature a two-tee start as well as it being the first time in its 102-year history, the US Open was played at a municipal, daily-fee public golf course.

Originally designed by the renowned course architect Albert Warren Tillinghast in 1934, the Bethpage Black was updated to meet the US Open's reputation for difficulty in 1998 by Rees Jones.

BLACK COURSE REDESIGN

In April 1995, the USGA had agreed that Bethpage Black was a strong enough course to host the US Open, but not in its current condition. It was a public course that saw more than 35,000 rounds a year and was in need of extensive renovations. There were bunkers that had lost their original contours, fairways with serious drainage problems and greens that needed to be completely refurbished. The task was to bring the Bethpage Black - the most difficult of the five courses in this park complex owned and operated by the State of New York - to tournament conditions without destroying its essential character as a public golf course. Course designer Rees Jones estimated at that time it would take $3 to $4 million to bring the Bethpage Black up to Open quality. It was a combined restoration and a modernization project for which Jones donated his time for free. Work included construction of championship tees, restoration of all fairway and greenside sand bunkers and green surface expansions on select holes. The original Tillinghast routing of the holes had remained unchanged, as had most of the green surfaces. What had changed were the trademark bunkers. Years of wear and tear, low maintenance budgets, storms, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of golf had taken their toll. The USGA eventually spent $2.7 million to renovate the Black Course, which included reviving the size and scale of Tillinghast’s original bunkers. Rees Jones carefully studied photographs from the archives and an aerial photograph of Bethpage Black taken in 1938. Some of the bunkers had been abandoned or had caved in during heavy rains and were left to become grassy slopes. In other cases, as to the right of the second green, one large bunker had become three or four small shapeless bunkers. Jones’ team rebuilt every fairway bunker on the Black Course except the large one on the seventh hole. In every case, the characteristic Tillinghast features of noses, fingers, and bays were meticulously restored. Several of the fairway bunkers were moved forward to better serve their original intent of penalizing errant shots, especially in light of the huge distances pros are hitting their drivers these days. Most of the greenside bunkers were moved closer to the putting surfaces. The greens on holes three, eight, fifteen and seventeen were slightly enlarged to give more hole positional options. To create a tougher finish, the side of the putting surface of the 18th was reduced to half the original size. The contours were left alone with Stimpmeter reading of a fast 12. A Stimpmeter is a ramp that allows for consistent and fair measurement of green speed on a particular course. The distance the ball rolls, in feet, is the speed or "stimp" reading for the green. The instrument was invented by Mr. Edward S. Stimpson in 1936 and later implemented for use by the USGA in 1978.

In general, 350 yards were added to the Bethpage Black. The seventh hole, previously a 585-yard par 5, now plays as a 479-yard par 4, bringing the course to a par-70 from its standard par-71 layout.

On 10 June 1998 after a year of renovations in preparation for the 102nd US Open Championship in 2002, the famous Black Course at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale officially re-opened to the public.

Despite all of these changes, it did not stop Tiger Woods winning his second US Open on 16 June.

This was the sixth time that Rees Jones had overseen renovation of a US Open Course. His restoration projects include: The Country Club, Brookline, Mass. (1988); Hazeltine National G.C., Chaska, Minn. (1991); Baltusrol G.C. (Lower), Springfield, N.J. (1993); Congressional C.C., Bethesda, Md. (1997); and Pinehurst No. 2, Pinehurst, N.C. (1999).

MAINTENANCE

Craig Currier has been at Bethpage State Park since 1997, he is now director of golf course maintenance. The maintenance of the Black Course falls under his remit, as does the upkeep of the four other courses, a polo field, riding trails and tennis courts on 1400 acres of land. This requires a staff of 70. Tim Monaghan, the USGA’s director of championship agronomy worked closely with Currier during the build up to the 2002 championship. Since starting his job, Currier has bought his own bulldozer, 50 trucks and a laser level so he can construct his own tees without an outside contractor. Currier has built 50 tees around the park. The Bethpage Black's maintenance budget is $1 million per year. During the 2001/2002 winter a massive pruning programme was undertaken to open up the air flow through the course. The bunkers were also refurbished with new netting and new sand to a consistent depth of 4in in the bottoms and 3in in the faces.For the US Open itself the ryegrass tees were cut at 0.3in, the ryegrass fairways at a little under 0.325in and the bentgrass greens to less than 0.1in. The rye grass rough was maintained at the USGA’s 4in. During the build up to the event, Storr Tractor, who supply the course with Toro products, supplied six extra employees to help.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Bethpage is a daily fee course, with more than 30,000 rounds played per year. Green fees are $39-$79 on weekdays and $49-$100 on weekends. Green fees at Bethpage Black are also guaranteed not to increase more than the cost of inflation for three years following the Open.