Jeff:
I agree completely with your statement but the bigger questionmark is when will NY State Parks & Recreation come out of its coma and bring Montauk up to the level it should be? I would hope the TLC demonstrated at Bethpage can be repeated to some degree with the Downs.
It confounds me that such a good layout receives at best scant attention and $$$. The greens are normally shoulder turn height for most of the season and although the rates are very affordable given its east end location -- there's no reason why the course cannot be much better than it is.
I'm not advocating the existing conditions you find at Bethpage or enhancing its already challenging demads from a design perspective -- simply because Montauk will not receive the $$ that Betpage received from the USGA for its facelift in account of hosting the Open.
I've been venturing out to Montauk for 20 years and the Downs has plenty to offer -- especially when the wind freshens on most summer afternoons.
But all the woulda, coulda, shoulda's add up to the samething -- zilch, goose egg, nada.
Montauk Downs if properly updated / modernized, whatever you want to call it, can be a shining star and worthy of national attention. Unfortunately, too many of the raters who see the course, in my mind, presuppose what the course "can be" rather than how it "really is."