Sunrise at Bethpage

Breakfast at Bethpage

 

By Bob Albright

“Oh geez, he’s playing from the white tees!”

A voice straight out of the third base line in the Bronx boomed from the sizeable gallery on the first tee at Bethpage Black as I placed my tee some 15 yards ahead of the same launching spot Tiger Woods and Co. will use later this month. Sporting a slope of 140 and a sign ominously announcing that this is a course that should only be played by low handicap golfers, it was a fairly predictable opening salvo. By the same token, however, that is precisely why this 23-handicap decided to play right there. Lining up the shot and staring down at the long row of 2009 US. Open tents lined up like dominoes down the left side of the fairway on a sun-splashed Friday morning, the 21-hour odyssey – the five-hour drive, the sleepless night in 40 degree temps in the parking lot, even the barbs from the gallery – it took to reach this moment seemed very worthwhile. The bottom line was that we had the very first tee time on the picture perfect day at Bethpage Black, the site of the U.S. Open

It can be done.

12:05 p.m., Thursday afternoon – With 11 different Bob Dylan CDs, a full tank of gas, and the requisite camping and golfing gear NSG photographer Mike Norris and I punch 99 Quaker Meeting House Rd., Farmingdale, New York into our trusty GPS and leave Peabody in our rear view mirror. It’s a 234-mile trip that you can make in four hours flat if you play the traffic right (we didn’t) and hit the Long Island Expressway well before or after the afternoon exodus from the city. Even with a steady back up heading onto the Throgs Neck Bridge, we still hit the exit for Bethpage a little before five. Weaving past the first of several signs to the vast park which includes not only the Black, but four other courses as well, the quiet anxiety was almost palpable. Due to the upcoming Open only the first 24 people in line are guaranteed a spot the next morning on the Black. Whether it be six cars with four golfers apiece, or 12 cars with two apiece, the math is pretty simple: Get a parking space numbered 13 or higher in the overflow lot and you’ve likely just driven 234 miles for nothing. With the U.S. Open just two months away and a picture perfect 70-degree day in the forecast the following morning, it’s a grim possibility that has been hanging over us ever since we left the North Shore.

5:18 p.m. – After several anxious moments we locate the lot, and, much to our relief, spy just one car parked in line. Nothing to do now, but to pull out the lawn chairs, spark up the grill and try to wrap our brains around the humbling golf fate that awaits us come sunrise sprawling over 7,000 yards in the distance. A quick tour of the stately clubhouse and several interviews with golfers who have just finished up their rounds on the famed course does little to calm our nerves. As the tape rolls, the same theme, and the same adjectives – daunting, wicked, brutal, obscene – echo over and over again … and that’s just about the robust gallery on the first tee. Posing with a weak smile for the obligatory shot in front of the infamous “Bethpage Warning Sign” behind the first tee, I can feel a Titleist-sized stress knot taking root in my shoulder.

6:45 p.m. – Still just two cars, two grills and two coolers filled with 12 ounce “swing relaxers” in the overflow parking lot. A member of the Bethpage staff comes out to greet us and, after taking down my driver’s license, affixes the bracelet that will guarantee me a spot on the tee the following morning. At this point you’re pretty much home free. Your spot has been recorded and you’re permitted to leave the lot for one hour to get a bite to eat or more supplies. If you have a second car you could conceivably go get a motel room as long as you are back with your car at 4:30 in the morning when a member of the staff hands out the first 24 tickets of the day. There are restrooms on the other end of the parking lot that stay open all night and the bar in the clubhouse is open until at least nine on weeknights, later on the weekends.

As far as camping goes, most people just sleep in the car but there is a small area where you could pitch a tent. Sleeping under the stars? One too many stories about the Craig Stadler-sized raccoons that frequent the lot puts that plan to rest. RV’s? Word has it that it has been done, but it is frowned upon. There is an unspoken code of ethics at play here. You can, indeed, arrive the night before and secure a tee time on what is widely regarded as one of the top 25 courses in the country, but you have to pay the price and follow the rules. The staff at Bethpage is outstanding, but you get the feeling that they want to see the root marks on your back or the seatbelt creases on your face when you hit the first tee. Play by the rules, however, and you can get on the tee and, in that way, Bethpage is as democratic as the major championship it will host for a second time later this month. Anyone can play and for a fairly affordable price ($50 for N.Y. residents, $100 for the rest of us); there’s no Judge Smails who is going to whisk in the next morning and put his ball ahead of yours at the first tee.

9:25 p.m. – Despite much pleading it is clear that the bartender in the clubhouse is not going to let us watch the replay of the Yankees coughing up a large lead to the Orioles on the YES Network for a third time and ushers us back in to the cold. Come the Open, he says, the intimate bar will serve as a lounge for the players and their families where he’ll likely be making mimosas for a much better looking clientele than the one he’s been pouring drafts for all night.

With the mercury tickling the 40-degree mark, we head back to the minivan and find that the parking lot has now swelled to seven cars. To our immediate right is a health insurance rep who has made the two-and-a-half hour trek from Pennsylvania to play the Black Course for a 13th time. A 12-handicap, his fianceé recently called off their impending nuptials and, to be honest, he doesn’t seem all that broken up about it. Perhaps that’s because he’s turned what was going to be a deposit on a banquet hall into a trip to play the Old Course at St. Andrews with his father the following week. He has even decided to treat himself to a caddie, which runs about $75, for tomorrow’s round.

To his right is a 2-handicap from Atlanta, Georgia, who struck up a friendship with Bethpage’s head superintendent, Craig Currier, several years ago and has been coming back ever since. He’s also a pretty accomplished magician who travels across the country reading the greens by day and his audience’s minds by night. Both are pretty funny guys, and even better golfers who will likely be paired up with us in the morning. As I stretch out in the back of the van and turn off the heat for the final time, I take solace in the fact that at least I’ll be able to drop my ball next to theirs in the fairway if I get in trouble.

3:30 a.m., Friday morning – Haven’t slept a wink. Even a well-placed 8-iron to the back of Norris can’t halt the nasal fireworks that are seemingly moving our vehicle across the lot. I’m stressing out once again. Playing “The Black” as a 23-handicap is a bit of a stretch to begin with. Doing it on no sleep is about as intelligent as telling Phil Mickelson to just follow his gut in the final round of a major.

4:50 a.m. – It’s go time. The alarm goes off at 4:45 and right on time the tap on our frosty windshield from another member of the Bethpage staff sends a squad of bleary-eyed golfers scurrying out of their assorted cars. Everyone is awake since the staff at Bethpage makes no bones about the fact that if you snooze you do indeed lose and they will happily move right on to the next car. The remaining bracelets are handed out and each golfer receives a numbered ticket. About nine cars past us they reach the allotted 24 spots. The remaining golfers receive tickets and can either book one of the first tee times at one of the other courses or can be first in line for a spot on the Black course if a reserved tee time does not show up. It seems only just that a gangly young golfer who spent all night propped up in a lawn chair in the back of his pickup truck gets one of the last bracelets.

With all the tickets handed out, there’s a mass exodus from the overflow lot to the clubhouse where you officially pay for your round and are assigned a tee time. Normally, you can get out as early as 6:30, but with the Open right around the corner, the tee times run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. After the group immediately in front of us opts for the 8:45 tee time, we jump on the first tee time of the day, 8 a.m.

7:15 a.m. – Riding the surge of a large coffee chased by the first of many Red Bulls, I duck hook the last of a large bucket of range balls. It has not been an impressive display. The artificial adrenalin rush combined with the lack of sleep and building anxiety has transformed an already unreliable stroke to something that really should not be brought out in broad daylight. If there is a bright spot, there’s only 10-12 people milling around the first tee to watch the carnage.

7:55 a.m. – A one-hour frost delay is announced. Oh goody. Another 15 people or so congregate behind the first tee to watch the fireworks.

8:55 a.m. – With a snip of her scissors, the starter on the first tee cuts my bracelet off and, yes, I head for the white tees for no other reason really than I want to be another 15 yards away from the growing throng.

9:01 a.m. – The unthinkable. Perhaps put at ease by being called out by one of the same comrades who I had been sharing a grill and laughs with the night before, my tee shot somehow finds its way 273 yards down the center of the fairway (the magician had a Skycaddie). Better yet my second shot, a 5-iron, lands 10-feet below the hole and I two-putt for par … so what’s all the hoopla about the Black anyway?

9:12 a.m. to 1:53 p.m. – The other 17 holes? I’ll leave those to Johnny Miller and the experts to dissect. I will say that I never recorded another par and when they say you walk on average six and a half miles on the sprawling Black (no carts are allowed), they’re not exaggerating. Every green is elevated and there’s enough sand to keep a whole generation of Hasselhoffs gamely employed. It is the toughest course I’ve played, but also one of the most enjoyable. The six-and-a-half hour ride back to Peabody on no sleep? Well, we’ll leave that one for another issue. See you in the parking lot at Pebble Beach for the Open in 2010. To view an audio slide show of our trip to Bethpage log on to the North Shore Golf Blog.

Back to the Black

Course: The Black Course at Bethpage State Park, Farmingdale, N.Y.

Architect: A.W. Tillinghast (1936); Renovated by Rees Jones (1997)

Par / distance / slope:

71 / 6884 / 140 (regulation)

71 / 7366 / 148 (championship)

A good walk unspoiled: There are no carts allowed on the Black course and golfers can plan on walking roughly six and a half miles to play it.

Major Championships: U.S. Open 2002 (Tiger Woods, champion, 3-under par), U.S. Open 2009 June 18-21.

What’s new since 2002? Another 212 yards have been added to the course, plus additional fairway bunkers.

Accolades: Ranked No. 29 in Golf Digest’s Top 100 Courses; Ranked No. 6 in Golf Digest’s Toughest Courses.

Course record: Craig Thomas 64. (Former North Andover Country Club member Larry Rentz held the old mark with a 65.)

Rates: $50 (N.Y. Resident), $100 (non-resident) weekdays

How can I get on? Reservations available to NY residents a week in advance. Tee times available for the first hour each day on a first come first serve basis and for one foursome each hour after that.