After seeing Phil Mickelson birdie three of his first four holes in the first round of the 2002 U.S. Open, course superintendent Craig Currier started to get nervous. He radioed his boss, Dave Catalano, director of Bethpage State Park, home to five courses including the Black, which was hosting the national championship for the first time.
“Big Dog, we’re in big trouble,” said Currier, who had led a Herculean effort to prepare the course for its star turn as the first municipal layout to host the Open. As indicated in the warning on the 1st tee, the Black course had a reputation for difficulty that bordered on the mythical. Yet here was Mickelson, starting fast on the back nine, threatening to shatter that myth.
Seven years later, on the eve of the Open’s return to Bethpage, it’s a well-known piece of golf history that the Black ultimately repelled all comers. The layout’s prodigious length, difficult setup punctuated by thick rough (made even sterner by foul weather), and slippery though not overly sloped greens that were running at close to 15 feet on the Stimpmeter by Sunday yielded only one score in red numbers: Tiger Woods’ 3-under 277.
When the Open returns this June, look for a Black course that is less sinister. Lessons from the ’02 Open, combined with a shifting—some might say enlightened—notion of how a U.S. Open course should play, has significantly influenced the setup for this year.
Working with Currier and Mike Davis, the U.S. Golf Association’s senior director of rules and competition, Rees Jones made a number of course changes designed to add interest and flexibility as well as a little more muscle. Together they have written the latest chapter in the evolving history of one of the greatest public golf courses in the world.
Located about 35 miles east of Manhattan, Bethpage Black was laid out by A.W. Tillinghast on wooded, hilly land that had previously been a private estate. It opened in 1936, the third of three layouts (after the Red and the Blue) that the Golden Age architect designed as part of a New Deal project spearheaded by Robert Moses. From the park’s earliest days, the courses were celebrated as a country club for the masses. “Where Millions Play” declared a headline in the Brooklyn Eagle in May 1935.
