The PGA in May - No. 5: Bethpage To Play? To Watch? To Something Else?

[V. Kmetz]

Outside of WF, where I'm lucky enough to have good run of the place, I'm ambivalent about what exactly motivates me to "want/lobby" for a championship TV tournament to be held at such and such a course...Is it because I think it provokes good play from top players? Is it because I know it well, maybe even played it and want to see how the best tackle it?  Is it because I'll never get there and won't ever see it for myself, and want to experience it remotely?  Do I care for diversity in regions of the country from my largely fixed position in the Northeast? Hasn't it been proven and shown that the nature of elite TV golf cares not for any of this and exploits and fortunes are locked in for years anyway?


I was thinking about this in forecast that I'm goign to enjoy this Bethpage PGA, yet I realize that some manner of my enjoyment is owing to some of the faux, hi-budget, non-elite play ruining GCA things that are deemed necessary to provoke the world's best.


And I also regard the dichotomy in me that hates watching a tournament at Baltusrol, a course which is infinietly better for personal play than Bethpage is now. I'd rather play Baltusrol, but not watch amd watch Bethpage, rather than play.


cheers  vk

[Ronald Montesano]

Unless May in Farmingdale differs from June (2002 and 2009), we will not only see a sh!t-ton of rain at Bethpage, but it will also be cold like Sunday in 2002 was (when they ran out of coffee, as they hadn't anticipated needing it.)


I really want to see the Black play fast and firm, not soggy and slow. I think we will get the later this May, and it will be a step back for golf. I really anticipated a great PGA in AUGUST this year, until they made that dumb-ass move to May. I anticipate that they will get the PGA out of the northeast in future years, and that we will see more southern courses host that event. This will be a good thing.


I think that the Black should become a ceremonial, rather than rotational, big-event course. I like it as a Ryder Cup site.

[Jeff Schley]

I anticipate that they will get the PGA out of the northeast in future years, and that we will see more southern courses host that event. This will be a good thing.

This will be the best aspect of moving to May is that is brings southern courses into consideration as it isn't scorching with humidity the first week of May in the South yet.

[Tim Martin]

Unless May in Farmingdale differs from June (2002 and 2009), we will not only see a sh!t-ton of rain at Bethpage, but it will also be cold like Sunday in 2002 was (when they ran out of coffee, as they hadn't anticipated needing it.)


I really want to see the Black play fast and firm, not soggy and slow. I think we will get the later this May, and it will be a step back for golf. I really anticipated a great PGA in AUGUST this year, until they made that dumb-ass move to May. I anticipate that they will get the PGA out of the northeast in future years, and that we will see more southern courses host that event. This will be a good thing.


I think that the Black should become a ceremonial, rather than rotational, big-event course. I like it as a Ryder Cup site.

If you had the PGA last year in August at BPB  you would not have gotten firm and fast as it rained incessantly right through the middle of October. I would much rather don a sweater in May than be guaranteed to wilt in August regardless of venue. There is nothing alluring to me about a southern site in August.

[V. Kmetz]

I really want to see the Black play fast and firm, not soggy and slow. I think we will get the later this May, and it will be a step back for golf. I really anticipated a great PGA in AUGUST this year, until they made that dumb-ass move to May. I anticipate that they will get the PGA out of the northeast in future years, and that we will see more southern courses host that event. This will be a good thing.

I think that the Black should become a ceremonial, rather than rotational, big-event course. I like it as a Ryder Cup site.

If you had the PGA last year in August at BPB  you would not have gotten firm and fast as it rained incessantly right through the middle of October. I would much rather don a sweater in May than be guaranteed to wilt in August regardless of venue. There is nothing alluring to me about a southern site in August.



One of the several reasons I pined for the move to May is that for the largest part of America, the months of May and June are the optimum weather months.  Not for EVERY region and certainly, any one season or short string of seasons can defy that statement; yet the overall long truth of it is indisputable.


Though I don't have the same local experience as UK friends, I imagine July (in general climate, in daylight for big fields - sometimes off one tee, in the non-climate reason of the offseason of Euro-football is similarly the best month to have the Open Championship.


And while AN can seemingly afford to engineer a tournament in any number of months, April is a particularly favorable and temperate time to present their tournament in that fixed region.


And with the USOpen fixed in June, that left May as the best as-yet-unadvantaged time to host a major professional championship in America, the time that could see the most regions potentially covered, the greatest variety of regions that contain the highest chance of favorable agronomic conditions combined with the most favorable, predicatble climate for players, their play and spectators of that play.


And my more subjective final portion of this is that locally (in the Mid-Atlantic/TriState) mid-May is the most glorious, most even, and most desirable month to be outdoors, no less golfing... the days can be warm enough to swim, but  the nights can dip below 45...winds are gentler and feel cool, rather than cold...the day often starts with a light jacket or sweater and slacks and ends up in shirt sleeves and shorts...playable daylight stretches to within an hour of its maximum...


For Golf specifically, the greens are smoothest, truest, and play well at the greatest ranges of speeds and May rough (for local play) is often still not grown or healthy enough to be impossible. With an earlier spring cutting or two, the rough in mid-May is so very fair in its variety and challenge to shot making... in a few weeks of no-cutting and even a little water, it can be turned into the mosntrous birds nest and impossibilities that create such kevetching on this GCA site, but here in mid-May the rough is still variable enough that you can get greasy lies, and clumpy ones and launching pads, knuckleball lies and yes, a patch of impossible swirl that might have to be chopped out 110 regardless of the ultimate target at 160. 


cheers   vk

[Peter Pallotta]

The reason the PGA is the '4th Major' is because no youngster has ever made his make-believe winning putt there, no tour pro has ever dreamed of the fame & riches & sense of greatness it would bring, and no immortal save for Arnold Palmer has ever rued its absence on his resume. And with televised sport being essentially a pure live drama, it's hard indeed for the audience to invest in the final act when even the main protagonists don't care enough to cry about it. It's like Hamlet having calmly decided in the first five minutes that it's much nicer & better 'to be' than not. So in that context, the only element that just might add a titch of interest to the PGA-4th Major is the venue -- because of its history or exclusivity or the ghosts of great champions past like Hagen or Hogan or Jones. And, no, for me the narrative of Fay-Davis awakening to the glory of public golf isn't nearly enough, even if the course was much lovelier & more interesting than Bethpage Black.