Tiger helps Bethpage golfers enjoy the club

Bloomberg

The Round Swamp Golf Club hit the jackpot when the U.S. Open came to Bethpage State Park.

Round Swamp does not have a clubhouse or a course of its own. What the group, mostly retired men who started getting together in 1970, does have is the park in Farmingdale, New York. Their fortunes improved in 1996, when Bethpage’s Black Course was picked as the first publicly owned-and-operated site of the U.S. Open, the second of golf’s four annual major tournaments.

The United States Golf Association and the state of New York pumped at least $3 million into the 2002 tournament that was won by Tiger Woods, who is No. 1 in the World Golf Rankings. Golf’s best return this week to Bethpage Black, bringing along an additional investment that will keep all five of the park’s 18-hole courses in pristine condition for years to come.

"It’s like night and day," said Jim Graham, a retiree from Oceanside, New York, who learned the game at Bethpage and has played there for 45 years. "Since the 2002 Open, it has gone to another level. It’s like having your own country club for guys who can’t afford to join one." The USGA spent $3 million to renovate the facility after announcing the winning bid in 1996. For the 2009 tournament that runs June 18-21, golf’s governing body for the U.S. and Mexico made a $6 million payment directly to New York’s Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, some of which will be used to keep Bethpage at its current condition, state spokeswoman Eileen Larrabee said.



’Substantial’ income

While New York doesn’t break out how much state funding went directly to the park, Bethpage Director David Catalano called it a "substantial investment" that helped refurbish all five courses.

Golf Digest magazine ranks the Black Course as the 29th best in America, public and private. Walk-up prices for state residents to play 18 holes at Bethpage, which averages more than 275,000 rounds annually, are $36 for the Blue, Green and Yellow courses; $41 for the Red; and $50 for the Black, the championship course that often requires days of sleeping in your car to secure a tee time. Prices for seniors range from $24 to $30.

Pebble Beach Golf Links on California’s Monterrey Peninsula, the site of next year’s Open, charges $495 a round.

"The Black Course is one of the best in the country, but the four other courses are just superb," said Jim Kovalsky, 76, from North Hills, New York. "We’re very fortunate to have this." The Round Swamp group includes about 25-30 retired New York City firefighters and takes its name from Round Swamp Road, which cuts through the Black Course about 30 miles east of Manhattan.



Usually week days

Most of the club’s members play Bethpage on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, while some still in the workforce play on weekends. On June 10, the last day the facility was open to the public before closing for two weeks, many gathered near the parking lot following their rounds. Some enjoyed a beer, and all were thankful that the water tasted better than before the Open came to town. "The water coming out of the fountain tasted so bad you couldn’t drink it," Kovalsky said. "Now, it’s perfect."

Others visiting Bethpage also had memories of impoverished times at the 1,700-acre facility, which was bought by New York in 1932 from the estate of railroad baron Benjamin Yoakum for $100,000 in cash and $900,000 in public bonds. "When I was a kid, the sand traps had rocks in them and grass growing throughout," said Steve Cummings, a 64-year-old retired banker from Massapequa Park, New York. "They just made every course spectacular. The renovation they did was incredible and they’ve maintained it."

While the Bethpage courses may remind golfers of a high-end country club experience, the same can’t always be said for the players themselves.

On the last day of public play, golfers were teeing off in T-shirts and jeans, clothing that’s forbidden at nearly all private clubs.

"Hopefully, that would improve," said Cummings, who has played private U.S. Open clubs Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, New York, and Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, New York. "It’s a state course, so you really can’t enforce it." Not everyone is happy about some things that come with putting on the U.S. Open.

The Black was closed on June 1, while the other courses were altered to accommodate hospitality tent villages and temporary roads. All four of the non-championship courses had at least two par-4s shortened to par-3s this spring, Catalano said.

"You’ve got people who are unhappy that they have to play a par-3 or whatever, but what I’ve learned at Bethpage is that someone is going to complain about something at all times," he said in a telephone interview. Catalano, 62, said the courses are "exponentially better" than they were when he started part-time at Bethpage in 1967. "The everyday person has a phenomenal opportunity to play golf here every day," he said.