The PGA in May - No. 3: Bethpage 25 years of a "Thing"

[V. Kmetz]

It's about 25 years since (the story I remember goes) that Mike Davis (whose name I didn't recognize before this point) played Bethpage with a (then) radical thought as its suitiability for a big, shiny successful mega Open in the future on a restored Bethpage. Great end of Golden Age course, designed by a pantheon Golden Age architect, big NY crowds, lots of smiles everywhere.


Before this, while the USGA was growing ever more heavily invested in/identified with course set-up, this was the first time I can recall they were actuallly directing the enterprise from nearly formula. They put money and a leading architect on the job and had it ready about three years (1999) before play to observe it/tweak it, which they did as the nYState Open and Met Open tournament began play on the renovated course in that time (the NYSOpen has been permanently held there since).


Both first-timers and golfers (like me) who played (or like me, played and caddied) on Bethpage pre-renovation...were astounded and delighted. Even before the 2002 USOp, Bethpage was vaulted into the spotlight, back on Top lists, buzz aplenty with photospreads, golf shop talk, every rich and poor man wanting to play it in those years (still).


Now, while I have as sharp a critque and as nuanced love for Bethapge's experience as any, I'm askign about the big picture.


On one hand, the course/many holes have become slave to that idea of "hosting championship play" (impossible to find/play rough, narrowed fairways, costly treatments, larded with tee boxes...  pricking much of the disdain honest people have for USGA tournament conduct and the moneyed politics of course presentation/reputation...but Bethpage is now IN the canon, restored to conversation and it is still wildly popular for a public that is, albeit, regulalry broken by it.


So, I'm not specifically asking for one's opinion on the GCA merits of Bethpage (may be a future volume) but was this enterpirse, started 25 years ago, worth it...warts and all?


cheers  vk

[Tom_Doak]

“Worth it” in what sense?


While it was a lovely story of saving public golf, the USGA made a bundle more money going to Bethpage.  They didn’t have to pay a private club to give up their course, and they didn’t have to share the merchandising revenue the same way.  That led directly to the idea of using other, modern, public courses which would trade the revenues of the event for the notoriety and free publicity (and the huge bump in green fees that followed).


And I’m trying to remember how many other great munis the USGA has helped save with all of the proceeds from the success of the Opens at Bethpage, but I’m having trouble with my memory now that I’m getting old.

[Jonathan Mallard]

And I’m trying to remember how many other great munis the USGA has helped save with all of the proceeds from the success of the Opens at Bethpage, but I’m having trouble with my memory now that I’m getting old.

Did they ever lift a finger for Oakhurst?

[V. Kmetz]

“Worth it” in what sense?

While it was a lovely story of saving public golf, the USGA made a bundle more money going to Bethpage.  They didn’t have to pay a private club to give up their course, and they didn’t have to share the merchandising revenue the same way.  That led directly to the idea of using other, modern, public courses which would trade the revenues of the event for the notoriety and free publicity (and the huge bump in green fees that followed).

And I’m trying to remember how many other great munis the USGA has helped save with all of the proceeds from the success of the Opens at Bethpage, but I’m having trouble with my memory now that I’m getting old.

Well, you're defining worth, right here Tom. Quite legitimate. 

• I know you're not saying they are not allowed to plan a "more" profitable thing than another, but are you saying THAT pursuit overwhelms whatever "good" the extra 0s represent?
• Based on the factors I pre-ambled, am I right in denoting Bethpage as the inaugural "thing" of that sort of thinking on their part?
• Do/could they do any good or does it seem that they more prefer their contentious hegemony with top dollar, as opposed to a peaceful, beningn hegemony with less dollars?

cheers  vk

[Bill Crane]

What I have read in the past indicated that David Fay wanted to bring a US Amateur to Bethpage in the 1980s and that started the idea of holding a major event there.  He never really gave up on the idea.


Could be revisionist history or just a lack of detail here on either side??   Certainly Mike Davis must have been involved early on since the Open was his baby. 


I seem to remember Bethpage as a prospective venue was characterized as Fay's idea in John Feinstein's book The Open.

[V. Kmetz]

What I have read in the past indicated that David Fay wanted to bring a US Amateur to Bethpage in the 1980s and that started the idea of holding a major event there.  He never really gave up on the idea.


Could be revisionist history or just a lack of detail here on either side??   Certainly Mike Davis must have been involved early on since the Open was his baby. 


I seem to remember Bethpage as a prospective venue was characterized as Fay's idea in John Feinstein's book The Open.

Yes, that's correct...jsut that Mike Davis' name started bubbling then too...David Fay...correct.

[Mike Sweeney]

but was this enterpirse, started 25 years ago, worth it...warts and all?

Absolutely. Not only did it propel "public-muni golf", it raised the bar for public-resort golf (see Pinehurst), private golf (Shinnecock and Winged Foot), and I would argue non-golf muni owned recreational facilities.


Like many things in America, we then overdue it (long rough and narrow fairways) but that does not dismiss that BB was a huge success for golf and other. I also like to qualify this by saying that The Black is unique as it sits next to 4 good to very good golf courses, so it could take this risk.

[jeffwarne]

Just because some people think it's better, doesn't make it so,
The course was booked solid pre renovation.

Bethpage is worse and the setup is worse now every day. (that's not the USGA's fault though)


Bethpage needed some TLC-no question.
Could've been win-win but instead we have a big long boring narrowed fairway(hard to even see where they are from the tee), seas of bluegrass forced carry(on nearly EVERY second shot) zzzfest .


Had loads of charm the first few scruffy State Opens I played in.


Gone.


Interesting listening to how much the players like Club de Golf in Mexico.
Slope, tilt green stimps way lower than usual with 10 footers breaking 4 feet and FAST downhill putts.
Actual strategy off the tee (the announcers make me want to puke criticizing Tiger's conservative approach.
USGA, PGA are you listening?

[Mike Sweeney]

The course was booked solid pre renovation.

Jeff,


In 1989, I moved to NYC, and I do remember it differently. I played with a buddy at Montauk and BB on back to back June or July days, and Montauk was booked and Bethpage Black was easy to get on. The other Bethpage courses were full as people did not want to walk The Black and it was always hard. Add in the cement sand in the bunkers, and people just went to the other courses.


I was on an RTJ streak at that point in life, and BB was completely refreshing.


I also used to go to NE Patriot games when they literally gave away tickets to BC students and nobody believes that either!!

[jeffwarne]

Mike,
My experience only dates to early-mid 90's.
I know EVERY time I tried to play a practice round BB was booked solid.
Most years i just didn't bother.
Montauk would be booked solid in July because the NY world is out east at that time-I'll assume it was July:)


My point is with some TLC rather than redesign, Bethpage would've gotten the same attention it now gets (US Open site etc).
Rock hard sand isn't a difficult fix and doesn't require bluegrass


Wouldn't it have been cool to take the Open to a real muni?
Only the USGA could turn Bethpage into a private and Shinny into a muni

[V. Kmetz]

Only the USGA could turn Bethpage into a private and Shinny into a muni

I understand, yet if you draw this comparison, Bethpage's alteration doesn't seem that excessive... Shinnecock this last Open, Thursday, was the most brutal experience that could be wrought out of the place.

[jeffwarne]

Only the USGA could turn Bethpage into a private and Shinny into a muni

I understand, yet if you draw this comparison, Bethpage's alteration doesn't seem that excessive... Shinnecock this last Open, Thursday, was the most brutal experience that could be wrought out of the place.

Yeah, I hadn't seen Shinny in that condition since...the last Open there....


The difference is, once (actually twice)Shinny recovered it's back to its old self.
Bethpage, not so much

[V. Kmetz]

There's no doubt that the Bethpage rough is as extreme a level before you get to hayfield...among other indecencies, I once saw a 15 hcp in the outside of the dogleg on 12 chop the ball 4 feet in front of him and with 12 eyes staring right at it could not find the ball.


And in the greatest local caddying performance there has ever been, a fellow named Jimmy Costello once caddied for the longest, wrongest, shankingest, slicingest, hookingest, "19 HCP" that ever wielded a shootin' iron and did not lose a ball there, bringing both his players (yes, he had two bags!) in under 100...


cheers  vk

[Peter Pallotta]

How come whatever the USGA touches has to change?
It's a strange conception of love that embraces the beloved not for who she actually is but for who you'll compel her to become.
Like Woody Allen said about his mother's cooking -- the USGA puts everything through a design deflavourizer.
The USGA 'loves' golden age architecture, and classic courses, and public golf -- and yet forces each of those, as the price of that love, to be re-fashioned in its own image.
And sadly, there seems to be no shortage of candidates lining up to be thus 'loved' and to happily pay that price.
Apparently there is nothing more important these days than money.
Even just raising the (now quaint) idea of 'selling out' marks you today as a fool or a communist.
What profits it a man, Richy Rich,  to gain a whole kingdom and lose his soul -- but for Wales?
Ironically, the only ones who can't be bought off by the USGA and re-made are the very ones I wish could/would be, ie the golf equipment companies -- maybe because they already make enough money the old fashioned way: they earn it.

[Mike Sweeney]

How come whatever the USGA touches has to change?

Basically every centralized organization of people creates - centralization. This of course can be very powerful, especially from an economic perspective, but it takes away the little things that make golf special. There is no way that the USGA should be advising from NJ headquarters (seasonal climate with bent grass) how a Super in Arizona should be tending to his course. Sure they can hire a local guy, slap a USGA sticker on his forehead, but did they add any real value?


This is Mike Young Philosophy 101!! I am waiting for my friends at the Maine State Golf Association to break away and start the "Bull Moose Golf Association" with Nova Scotia or similar:



The USGA is NEVER going to host a tournament in Maine, so why give them your fees/dues? For a handicap system that can be re-created or licensed from a bunch of online providers?

[Tom_Doak]

How come whatever the USGA touches has to change?
It's a strange conception of love that embraces the beloved not for who she actually is but for who you'll compel her to become.
Like Woody Allen said about his mother's cooking -- the USGA puts everything through a design deflavourizer.
The USGA 'loves' golden age architecture, and classic courses, and public golf -- and yet forces each of those, as the price of that love, to be re-fashioned in its own image.
And sadly, there seems to be no shortage of candidates lining up to be thus 'loved' and to happily pay that price.

The R & A has done the same with all of its Open venues.

[Tom_Doak]

Mike,
My experience only dates to early-mid 90's.
I know EVERY time I tried to play a practice round BB was booked solid.

I played the Black for the first time in 1979, with my mom, one afternoon.  It's a fond memory even though she did not finish many of the holes.  I had a great time looking at their map of the course and discovering the old 9th tee up above the 8th green, in the trees!


It was not booked solid that summer afternoon.  On the weekends, yes, but not during the week.  Even then, people didn't want to walk it.

[Tom_Doak]

but was this enterpirse, started 25 years ago, worth it...warts and all?

Absolutely. Not only did it propel "public-muni golf", it raised the bar for public-resort golf (see Pinehurst), private golf (Shinnecock and Winged Foot), and I would argue non-golf muni owned recreational facilities.


Like many things in America, we then overdue it (long rough and narrow fairways) but that does not dismiss that BB was a huge success for golf and other. I also like to qualify this by saying that The Black is unique as it sits next to 4 good to very good golf courses, so it could take this risk.

I will have to disagree.  Bethpage "raised the bar" for the CCFAD courses to spend too much money on construction and maintenance.  It did very little for municipal golf, and I don't think it changed what Shinnecock and Winged Foot were doing, at all.  Heck, they're the only ones who didn't hire Rees Jones.

[Mike Sweeney]

It did very little for municipal golf, and I don't think it changed what Shinnecock and Winged Foot were doing, at all.  Heck, they're the only ones who didn't hire Rees Jones.

Tom,


Rees and Bethpage started the "donate his services trend", and others followed:


https://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/against-long-odds-tom-doak-opens-short-course-heart-detroit


"Two years ago, at the request of the SI Golf Group, Doak agreed to donate the services of his Michigan-based Renaissance Golf Design to build a practice site at Marygrove not only for the student body, but also for participants of Midnight Golf, a 10-year-old mentoring program that combines life lessons with golf lessons to help inner-city high-school students find their way to college."