I played many many rounds at Bethpage between 2002 and 2014, there are some interesting personalities in the mix at the park.
Occasionally saw a few minor squabbles around the 1st tee, but nothing of note.
Away from that, one particular incident stands out...
We're playing the Red course on a Saturday morning, I'm sure we were in either the 8:04, 8:12, or 8:20 time slot.
Bethpage is always busy but if you get off before 8:28 you have a reasonable chance of playing the round at a decent pace.
We had a regular group but one guy couldn't make it so our buddy Joe (a commercial contractor working jobs in the city) brought someone he knew from a job site, obviously an immigrant and turned out to be from Nicaragua. Good player.
We were directly behind the group in front of us but as we walked off #3 tee the group behind us said something, we just laughed and let it go.
#4 is a good par-3 and we were
waiting, the group of Long Island bozos* behind us (on #3 green) decided to get really vocal about pace of play -- really vocal.
Well this guy from Nicaragua calmly walked all the back over to them and got in their face, and quietly spoke with them.
I have no idea what he actually said but those guys were truly frightened. They wanted no part of getting anywhere near us for the rest of the day, never saw them again.
Turned out our partner was a Sandinista guerrilla as a very young man -- there was literally nothing anyone at the park might bring to the table that would even register with that guy!!
(*PS...FTR, I love Long Island, and most of the people
)
(PPS...buckle up for the Ryder Cup, gonna get u-g-l-y
)