Black Beauty: Why Bethpage Black is the Perfect Ryder Cup Venue

Editor's Note: This story is running in the official Ryder Cup Program produced by GolfWeek.

Surely you’ve seen the sign. It hangs on a railing above the first tee of Bethpage State Park’s Black Course, warning players that this course means business. Who, exactly, can count themselves among the ranks of “highly skilled golfers”?

On most Long Island mornings at this state-run facility, players of all ilk carry their bags past the warning sign, determined to match their games to the sign’s qualifiers. With caddies’ help or not, few of these amateurs will show much mastery off the tee of the opening dogleg-right that tumbles down the hill and around the stand of trees. No matter: They have come to sample one of municipal golf’s greatest offerings , and they seem to accept the big numbers on their scorecards as a rite of passage.

Ryder Cup Hole by hole

In late September, all that changes when 24 of the most highly skilled golfers in the world arrive at the first tee for the 2025 Ryder Cup. The best of Europe and America will square off on one of the most awe-inspiring golf courses on the planet. While nobody can quite seem to nail down the origin story of that warning sign at the first tee, whoever first hung it surely would smile as golf’s premier match-play event rolls into Farmingdale.

And if ever there was a golf course deserving of the warning, the famously tough Bethpage Black is the spot. But to focus only on its difficulty is to miss much.

“It’s a wonderful golf course,” said Kerry Haigh, the English-born Chief Championships Officer and course setup guru for the PGA of America, which is conducting this Ryder Cup at Bethpage. “Obviously, the Black is a public golf course that's open to anyone, which is very cool. It's a big, big course with big bunkers, big greens. Everything about it seems big, and it's a really good, fair test of golf. It has a good variety of holes and great topography, and it is really a wonderful venue.”

The Black opened in 1936 with a design by famed architect Albert Warren Tillinghast and Joe Burbeck. And much like the first-tee warning sign’s origin story, the design credit is somewhat murky and includes occasional debate about which man deserves top billing. Officially, Bethpage State Park credits Tillinghast.;

The Black is one of five golf courses in the state park; the others are Red, Green, Blue and Yellow. Some 300,000 rounds are played among the fivesome each year. The fully public-access facility has been dubbed “The People’s Country Club” with good reason:– On a normal day, you might see amateurs in full golf regalia of logo shirts, saddle golf shoes and tour visors warming up alongside guys in blue jean shorts and tank tops. The whole place is magnificently muni.

Ryder Cup Hole by hole

Of the five courses, the Black is by far the most difficult, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with any major championship test. For many decades, the Black was often in rough shape, but it was revived with a Rees Jones renovation in the late 1990s after U.S. Golf Association officials cooked up the idea of holding elite competitions on this most-public of all layouts. It has since held the 2002 U.S. Open won by Tiger Woods, the 2009 U.S. Open won by Lucas Glover, two PGA TOUR playoff events in the form of The Barclays in 2012 and 2016 won by Nick Watney and Patrick Reed and, most recently, the 2019 PGA Championship won by Brooks Koepka.

But what makes the Black stand out?

It starts with the heaving terrain. The Black Course tumbles some 40 feet downhill on the first hole, crosses Round Swamp Road, then climbs 35 feet from the second tee to its green. That theme continues throughout as the Black takes players up and down, over and again, sometimes within the span of one hole.

The Black’s hills will add particular drama in the closing stretch of any Ryder Cup match. The long, par-4 15th hole climbs some 30 feet to the most severe green on the course. The par-4 16th then reverses direction, rollicking 60 feet downhill. The par-3 17th climbs just a bit, about eight feet to another complicated green surrounded by bunkers. The shortish par-4 18th then perfectly encapsulates all this movement, dropping some 30 feet off the tee before climbing more than 25 feet back up from the landing area to a green perched beneath the clubhouse. All those ups and downs certainly will complicate club selection for players amidst the intensity of Ryder Cup matches.

Ryder Cup Hole by hole

The math isn’t made any easier by the punishing nature of the Black’s bunkers. Frequently carved into the hillsides, many of these traps offer no flat lies as players are forced to fight for footing. Ryder Cup competitors are, of course, extremely skilled bunker players, but even they will struggle at times in these punishing pits.

All that sand is a key component of the Black’s defenses, nowhere better than on the double-dogleg, par-5 fourth hole. There awaits a prime example of a Tillinghast feature seen on several courses: the Great Hazard. Off the tee, the fairway curves left around a bunker that presents plenty of problems of its own, but the real trouble begins 350 yards off the tee. A massive, multi-fingered trap is cut into a hillside, entirely cutting off the elevated second section of fairway that curves to the right above all the sand.

This Great Hazard crossing bunker was intended to challenge players on their second shots, and it certainly will be in play for any Ryder Cup competitor who misses the fairway off the tee. It also will be a consideration on the tee shot for some of these powerful golfers, several of whom can drive all the way through the end of the lower fairway and into the Great Hazard. In the 2019 PGA Championship at the Black, stronger players sometimes teed off with 3-woods to avoid hitting it too far and into one of the most daunting sand traps in golf.

There’s more sand waiting just short of the green, complicating matters for players who might try to reach it in two shots, as well as messing with playing lines for competitors who lay up into the second section of fairway. In short, there’s a lot going on, and there is no opportunity to relax and play a carefree shot. No. 4 could be a great birdie opportunity for the competitors in this Ryder Cup, but any misstep will bring all that sand—and bogeys or worse—into play.

“Players on that hole have to make a decision on which club to hit off the tee, depending on the wind,” Haigh said. “Hitting that fairway is very important. And obviously it somewhat also depends on how thick the rough will be. Definitely, no matter what the rough height is or how thick it is, it's certainly an advantage to be in the fairway and controlling the ball.”

Beyond the bunkers, that need for control is further emphasized by the rough found on every hole and the frequent native grasses just beyond. Add all that tall grass to the hills and the traps, and Bethpage Black promises to punish any wayward effort. A Ryder Cup player can drop a hole in a heartbeat.

The one respite will come on the greens. Unlike many major championship sites, the putting surfaces of the Black are, in general, relatively benign. Whereas courses such as Augusta National Golf Club or Oakmont Country Club are defined by their incredibly contoured greens, Bethpage Black’s main challenge is reaching them. After finding the putting surfaces, players will enjoy plenty of opportunities to sink putts that probably will roll straighter than expected.

An aerial view of No. 18 at Bethpage Black with the First Tee grandstands built for the 2025 Ryder Cup.

On the 18th tee of the adjacent Red Course sits a bench with an honorary plaque for Vincent J. McNeese III, who is said to have been a beloved son of Bethpage and a huge golf fan. His advice ends with “Never give up the cup,” meaning to not play too much break on a putt. His advice carries over to the Black, where a player always has a decent chance of making a long putt to knock out an opponent or salvage a hole after scrambling en route to the green.

“I think a general description is the greens are not severe,” said Haigh, who has set up championships on many of the best greens in the world. “There's a handful that have more movement than others, but, generally speaking, the slopes are not extreme. That does allow for a lot more options for hole locations, which is certainly a positive in my mind and makes sense for a public course where you have a lot of play day-in and day-out. If you can move the holes around to a lot of locations, it helps spread the wear out.

“And for Ryder Cup play, you can certainly look to find interesting and fun locations, or even have a few less challenging hole locations if you want to make some holes more accessible. So that part of it is certainly fun and nice to have.”

Haigh said the PGA of America will appoint an experienced course-setup representative who will work with a counterpart from the European side to identify potential hole locations in advance of the matches. That pair must select five hole locations on each of the 18 greens, one for each session of play, 90 in all. They will remain mum on the locations until the week of play, when they will share with each team the general spots where holes will be cut but not the order in which various locations will be used. That detailed information will be shared with both teams just prior to each session of play.

If that all sounds a little inside-baseball, know there are all kinds of such options in course setup. The home team captain, who this year is American Keegan Bradley, will have offered input in the leadup to the Ryder Cup, making suggestions on course setup that might favor his team. He surely will include thoughts on rough height, fairway widths and green speeds. That’s all in addition to tweaks that have been made in recent years, such as moving some fairway bunkers farther downrange to better challenge modern, elite players.

Changes also are in play to accommodate the mass of spectators expected anytime the game’s best compete near New York City. The opening tee shot, for example, will play much differently than it does on a day-to-day basis at the Black. A new tee box was constructed that significantly shortens the hole, making way for massive grandstands at its rear. The shorter hole might encourage some players to attempt to drive the green, as they did on the opening tee shot of the 2021 matches at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, where the U.S. team won.

“I think it's fair to say the first tee of the Ryder Cup is one of the most incredible experiences in golf, you know, to just be there to soak up the atmosphere and the pressure that's on the players and the patriotism from both sets of spectators,” Haigh said. “It's incredible. And that's why we and Ryder Cup Europe, when it’s there, have tried to help add to that atmosphere and allow as many people as we can to experience it, see it and be part of it. ... It's fun and exciting, and that's why we love the Ryder Cup.”

Still, it’s not as if the nature of the Black can be entirely tamed. That’s a major part of the excitement, as well. It helps that the robust layout favors match play, in which head-to-head matches replace the grind of a standard 72-hole tournament. Players might take more risks in match play because one bad hole doesn’t necessarily endanger an entire week’s effort.

“With match play, it’s me against you, and in some ways the course takes a little bit more of a backseat than it maybe does in stroke play, because you've got to beat me by a stroke or I've got to beat you by a stroke to win the hole,” Haigh said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s by two, three, four, five or six strokes, so long as I beat you by one, then I win the hole.

“Par doesn’t matter. That's the fun and different thing about match play. It is really a totally different game than stroke play in many regards.”

An aerial view of No. 1 and No. 18 at Bethpage Black prior to the start of the 2025 Ryder Cup.

A major hub of this Ryder Cup will be the massive bleachers and hospitality tents in the open areas alongside Nos. 1, 15, 16, 17 and 18, as well as spilling into the first fairway of the adjacent Red Course. The surrounding hills about the course also will provide a place for fans to linger with often elevated views of the action. It will all add to the thrill as matches progress along fairways lined by vocal crowds.

“The Ryder Cup is an incredible event, with more passion than any golf event I’ve ever gone to, because people are rooting for one side against the other, and they’re shouting loudly,” Haigh said. “It’s almost like a college football game taking over the golf course, and it's something that we don't experience very often.

“It is an incredible atmosphere, and it brings out passion not only from the spectators but in the players and the caddies and everyone in the game.”