About a year ago, Luke Donald, along with his right man, Eduardo Mulinari, flew to New York to go through the next round of the Ryder Cup. Wood quickly realized that the European captain was in the city, so as long as the couple scored for their first goal in Bethpage Black, a package was waiting for about the two -door laughs to welcome them.
“In the first t, from England!” He shouted with a lot of laughter. “Former World No. 1, European team captain, Luuuuuke Donald!”
This is the most relaxed taste of what is in the future: as if Donald needs to remember, when the Ryder Cup starts on Friday, in a 45 -minute golf course outside Manhattan, fans of the house will not be shy. Add a constant stream of beer, some of the deep sporting tribalism and the edge of ginghism-Donald Trump opened on the day-multiplied by thousands of fans, and you began painting a picture of what is awaiting the European team.
Rome was fiery and Bethpage will be another pot of the Ryder Cup. This period is defamed for its difficulty, but also because of its access, it is a public public park, not a private fantasy club. Bethpage Black has a distinctive character that is not unlike New York – great and reckless, attractive and intimidating, open to the world.
There are no members here, no Snooty club law. This is the nickname of the people’s club club. Tee Times is available online for New York State residents a week before $ 75 (55.50 pounds) (the highest green costs in important hosts are six times the price). Non -residents can reserve five days from abroad and worldwide and pay $ 150.
For those who can’t reserve, there are also a few hiking gaps every day for premature entry, which creates a copy of the Wimbledon queue overnight in the Black Parking Parking. Before preparing in a compartment to prepare for the first time at 7am, it is regularly practicing green at 11pm. Some say, a golf course that never sleeps.
Thousands of golfists create this pilgrimage because Bethpage has a mythical status as a unique brutal challenge, one of which is to enjoy the lives. This is a nickname “beast”, and a famous mark in the first Tee warns of continuing the work unless you are a very skilled “golf.”
There is only one point of water, in a beautiful eighth hole, where a pond lurks at the foot of a steep green. Instead, the Bethpage poison is hidden in the giant shelter network. They are a total of seven and a half acres, and if you stand in one, there is a great opportunity that you are playing blind. Then there are rough, thick and hungry balls for golf balls, you swallow them thoroughly to get a lot of muscle and a little chance.
And yet the fact is that Bethpage will not bare its sharpest teeth for the Ryder Cup, as if it hosted the Open and PGA championships. Fans want to see the birds, not the Boj, and the racing holes decided by the green nerves, not the missing balls in the grass. Bethpage Black will still be long and slim with wide sand traps at any time waist, but it is rough and many flags are planted safely in the middle of the vegetables. What do they say about the New Yorks? Hard from the outside but from the inside is soft.
“This is not very mystery,” says Andrew Wilson, director of agriculture in the Bethea State Park. “These four inches or four and a half inches or anything else will not be the same. It will be a little benign.”
Wilson has been ready for these three days for more than a decade, since the announcement of Bethpage as the host of the Ryder Cup. There are five golf courses in the park that have been in trouble and they all play their role. The red period is covered in hospitality tents and the yellow period for media parking has been paved.
He grew up locally, with the idea that the event, held at FarmingDale, New York (State), is anchored by Palestinian sports organizers and journalists in New York. This is a familiar fact in the golf, of course, who likes to complicate geographical boundaries for business purposes. The last Ryder Cup was not really in Rome, and the first LIV golf matches were not really in London, but you can’t set up a rebel golf tour at ST Albans.
Wilson laughs: “There is a comedian that jokes,” No one says, I’m from FarmingDale, New York City. “
But he has no doubt that the Ryder Cup will play in a New York spirit and attracts tennis as a comparison. “Wimbledon is almost like Augusta, where it is like this weird population, while the United States is open in New York and has a little buzz in the background. This is what Bethpage loves.”
Several holes are prominent. The first is a quarter of a driving to ask if the players dare to cut the corner and move to the green. The seventh is a feet dog four. Thirteenth is a 608 yard that is accessible in two cases but with shelters. Hard 17th is a stadium hole with fans behind a green glass clock, where the shot will be hit. An epic horseshoe grandmother also wraps the first and eighteenth round.
The course is divided into two roads on the road they cross, and it is not unusual for drivers to stick to their horn because they open from a golf that leaves a shooting behind. This is just another thing that the European team has to deal with. “Oh, they will allow them to hear it,” Wilson said of his local fans.
In front of a powerful US team is on the golf course that no prisoners are, the great challenge of Europe is clarified. Not surprisingly, Rori McAlleri calls a Ryder Cup the hardest job in sports. Winning in Rome took your heart. Defending it in New York will cause the gut.
