Everything to Know About Bethpage Black, Host of the 2025 Ryder Cup

This week, Long Island will become golf's center of gravity.

Bethpage Black – a public track where you can still pay $80 bucks for a round if you're willing to camp out in the parking lot – is about to host the Ryder Cup for the first time in its nearly 90-year existence.

That's not a small thing. This place has stories to tell.

You have to go back to the 1930s to understand what Bethpage Black really represents. America was deep in the Depression when Robert Moses – the man who basically built modern New York – spotted this piece of Long Island real estate and saw something nobody else did. He called it "The People's Country Club," and he meant it.

Moses knew exactly who could bring his vision to life: A.W. Tillinghast, the most sought-after golf course architect of the 1920s. The legendary designer agreed to work for $10 a day. Ten dollars! Alongside Joseph Burbeck, a local golf pro who became the course's caretaker, Tillinghast transformed what had been the Yoakum family estate and parts of the old Lenox Hills Country Club into something extraordinary.

When the Black Course opened in 1936, it was part of President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration – a Depression-era jobs program that happened to create one of America's greatest golf courses.

According to the park's official records, "Famed golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast was hired to design and oversee construction of three new golf courses (the Black, Red, and Blue) as well as modify the original Lenox Hills course, later known as the Green Course." What emerged was a "7,468-yard brute that puts every shot and skill to the test."

Tillinghast outdid himself at Bethpage Black. This might be his masterpiece – 7,468 yards of pure strategic golf that plays to par 71 with a slope rating of 155. That's among the highest you'll find anywhere in the Northeast.

The course earned its fearsome reputation honestly. In the early 1980s, someone had the brilliant idea to post a warning sign at the first tee: "WARNING The Black Course Is An Extremely Difficult Course Which We Recommend Only For Highly Skilled Golfers." Most golf course warnings are about pace of play or dress codes. This one basically tells you to turn around if you're not good enough.

Golf Digest isn't kidding around when they rank it sixth on their list of America's 50 toughest layouts. The fairways squeeze you into narrow corridors. The rough doesn't just grab your ball – it swallows it whole. Those small, tilting greens demand shots that land in precisely the right spot, or you're looking at a 3-putt minimum.

The subtle angles and protective cross bunkers present in the layout are characteristics of many celebrated Tillinghast courses, which is golf-speak for: this guy knew exactly how to make you think twice about every single swing. Miss your spot by a few yards and you'll pay for it. Miss by more than that and you might as well pick up your ball.

Everything changed in 2002. Bethpage Black became the first public course – ever – to host a U.S. Open. That's like inviting the neighborhood pickup basketball team to play in Madison Square Garden, except the course proved it belonged on golf's biggest stage.

Tiger Woods won that historic championship, and his reaction afterward captured what made the moment so special: "It's awesome to win the nation's title, on a public facility, in front of these fans." The fans were different too – louder, more passionate, more Brooklyn than country club.

Lucas Glover took the next U.S. Open there in 2009, battling through conditions so wet that parts of the course looked more like Lake Bethpage than anything else. The venue kept collecting big events: The Barclays in 2012 and 2016, then the 2019 PGA Championship, where Brooks Koepka shot an opening-round 63 that still stands as the course record.

Each championship proved the same thing: Bethpage Black can break the world's best players while providing the kind of electric atmosphere that only happens when regular golf fans get to watch greatness up close.

The construction project transforming Bethpage for the 2025 Ryder Cup dwarfs anything the course has ever seen. Sure, they've tweaked the golf course itself – new bunkers on 13, wider fairways with a first cut added – but those changes pale next to what's happening everywhere else.

Construction crews began the massive buildout in April, and that's not an exaggeration. They've been building what amounts to a temporary metropolis: hospitality areas, grandstands, broadcast facilities stretching from the first tee all the way to the 18th green. One observer called it a "tremendous, temporary tent city," which somehow captures both the scale and the slightly surreal nature of turning a public golf course into the stage for golf's biggest team event.

The most dramatic construction surrounds the famous first tee – the same spot where that warning sign has been intimidating golfers for decades. Here's what it looks like:

The 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage promises something golf has never quite seen before. You're taking one of the world's most demanding golf courses and filling it with New York sports fans who treat golf matches like Yankee games. That's either going to be spectacular or completely chaotic.

Probably both.

The course will test every player – American and European – in ways that country club venues simply can't. This isn't manicured perfection; it's strategic complexity wrapped in 7,468 yards of "figure it out or go home." Meanwhile, those passionate Long Island galleries will create an atmosphere unlike any previous Ryder Cup.

What makes it even better: this is still the place where dedicated golfers sleep in parking lots for the chance to play championship golf for the price of dinner at most country clubs. Robert Moses's vision of bringing great golf to regular people hasn't just survived – it's about to get its biggest moment yet.

One longtime Bethpage golfer put it perfectly: "It's a grand, beautiful, glorious bargain. And somehow, it's only getting better." This week, we'll find out if The People's Country Club can deliver the perfect stage for golf's greatest team competition.

My money's on yes.

PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. Read his recent Monday Recap on RG.org and his stories on Athlon Sports. To stay updated on his latest work, sign up for his newsletter and visit OneMoreRollGolf.com.