The Black

I am going to be blogging on a regular basis starting in mid-September. I will kick-off the blog with an explanation of what I hope to accomplish, write about, etc.. But I thought I would post some photos I took of Bethpage Black a little more than a year ago. It was late October 2007 and I was at Bethpage to give a presentation on green design. The USGA was making preparations for the Open, so the course was shut down for the day. It is very unusual to get to tour the course when it is empty. It is a much better way to see a golf course if you are interested in studying features. (I did the same thing at St. Andrews by going on a Sunday and I will post those on my blog in the future). I toured the course on this beautiful fall afternoon with Scott Ramsay CGCS, the Golf Course Superintendent at Yale - a fantastic Seth Raynor design. We got to see the course from all angles, and we were completely overwhelmed by both the scale of the property and golf features. The bunkers are just enormous! You just can't grasp the scale of these things from the TV. The bunker that Scott is standing in front of contains as much sand as some entire courses have. Probably not fun to hand rake yesterday after 2" of rain!

We both noted that the green surfaces themselves are not overly impressive. Coming from Yale's dramatic and bold greens, Scott was commenting on their simplicity. Simple, but if they are stimping at 14, it's a good thing. I noted that many of the greens are elevated and you can't see the surface, so I thought it made good design-sense that they are straightforward. Anyway, it's beer-thirty on US Open Friday, so it's time for me to push out of my studio and watch some golf. These are some of my better photos. Enjoy.