Jay, here are three very different overnight Bethpage stories reprinted with permission by the author from his book, "Golf for the People: Bethpage and the Black."
He says to feel very free to use them however you might like...
It is Saturday morning outside the Bethpage State Park golf clubhouse, a typical weekend morning as the sun shows his glory over the rooftops. Of a sudden, all eyes turn; it appears that a fistfight has broken out in the front courtyard. The sounds of grunts and pain follow the sharp slapping as fist meets face. Some encouragement to each comes from the crowd of onlookers, no one attempting to stop the fisticuffs by leaving their place in line. When sanity finally takes over, and some good Samaritans at last help pull them apart, the cause of this altercation comes into question. What would cause two otherwise mature gentlemen to fight in front of the clubhouse at Bethpage State Park at five o’clock in the morning?
These two gentlemen who fought, over what turned out to be which man had the earlier spot in line, ended up spending the night in jail. They never did get to play.
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There was the poor guy who spent the night in his car waiting the dawns early light as well as an early tee time. This gentleman had looked forward to this round for months. He and his wife had come to Long Island to visit his wife’s family. Being a true golf fanatic he had decided that this would be his chance to finally play the Black, a course he had heard about and had wanted to play for several years. As he stood on the first tee the thrill of playing the course energized and inspired him. He hit what he described as one of the longest drives of his life, the ball carrying past the last tree on the right side and coming to a stop in the center of the fairway. There was actually some applause for this magnificent drive.
His feelings of adrenaline-inspired joy lasted until he was halfway down the hill from the tee. As he strode strongly forward his foot somehow found a soft spot in the slope and his legs went out from under him. He found himself tumbling downhill a short ways. What finally stopped him was a small hole that his right toe found itself wedging in. Needless to say, it was not the word fore that he found himself screaming as pain went shooting up his right leg to his brain from his knee.
He was helped to his feet by the other members of his foursome and tried to put pressure on his leg. Every time he took a step he felt searing pain shooting up through his leg. Finally and despite all of his efforts, he had to be helped back up to the tee. Pride and embarrassment caused him to decline the offer of an ambulance. He insisted that all he did was twist his knee a little and would be okay. The park personnel helped him to his car and so he left.
As he drove, the pain in his leg started to increase and grow more severe, seemingly moment by moment. As tears were now welling up in his eyes he decided that he couldn’t take it any longer and headed to the hospital. It turned out that he had broken his kneecap and torn ligaments. As he waited for the surgeon who would rebuild his knee he called his wife.
“Honey,” he said, “a funny thing happened at the first tee…”
In all the years and all the trips back to New York to visit the in-laws, he hasn’t been back to Bethpage since.
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October of 2001 saw the opening of the new movie “FireDancer.” Jawed Wassel, a 42 year-old Afghan filmmaker had spent the previous six years working on this autobiographical story of an Afghan youth who eventually leaves his village and settles down to live in New York.
This film must have been a labor of love for Mr. Wassel who himself was smuggled out by his mother after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Prior to coming to New York he lived in Germany and France, and obviously with the things he had gone through in his childhood, life had not been overly kind to him. Yet he managed to rise above it all and become an accomplished filmmaker.
The night of the premier arrived and with it all the excitement and pride that goes along with such an occasion. Among the people attending the showing was a Mr. Nathan Powell. Mr. Powell was one of the movie’s primary producers and financiers. That night he was supposed to receive thirty percent of the movie’s gross. Evidently there was some sort of misunderstanding or disagreement about the money, and an argument followed.
Soon the argument turned violent and a fight ensued, with Mr. Powell smashing Mr. Wassel in the throat with a pool cue. The violence didn’t end there. Mr. Powell allegedly then stabbed Mr. Wassel, killing him. Now the reality of what occurred stared him in the face; he would have to dispose of the body. How would he do this?
Not to make this story any more gruesome than is necessary, I will only say that he then took a hacksaw and dismembered Poor Mr. Wassel’s body. He placed the body parts and put them into two different boxes; all of them, that is, with the exception of the head. He put that in the refrigerator of his home.
The day after the killing, Mr. Powell loaded the boxes of body parts into a van; he was going to rid himself of the evidence. He climbed in and proceeded to drive to Bethpage State Park.
Police Officer Peter McGinn out on routine patrol, spotted the van as it was entering Bethpage State Park and decided to pull it over. It was being driven very suspiciously, the lights were turned off and it was weaving erratically. As he walked up to the van he looked in one of the windows and saw a shovel, a pickaxe and one of the bloody boxes. As Officer McGinn so eloquently put it, “I knew I wasn’t dealing with somebody going home from work.”
Mr. Powell was arrested and at this moment is awaiting trial. [That was at the time of the book’s writing. I have no idea how things turned out for him.]
One can only wonder where he would have buried the remains. I like to think that the perfect spot would have been in the waste bunker that stretches forever in front of the seventh tee of the Black would have been most apropos. Large, deep and massive, with sand as far as the eye can see, it is where many a fine drive has died just short of the fairway.