New York area golf fans can officially start readying their voices.
On Tuesday, the PGA of America made it official the 2019 PGA Championship and the 2024 Ryder Cup will be played at the famed Black Course at Bethpage State Park on Long Island.
After becoming the first truly public golf course to hold a U.S. Open in 2002, Bethpage Black continued its rise through the ranks of golf-course hierarchy with another successful Open in 2009, and The Barclays tournament, a FedEx Cup playoff event, in 2012. It will hold The Barclays again in 2015, and will forfeit its next stop in the four-course rotation, which would be set for 2019.
“This venue, this course, this city is going to bring the Ryder Cup to a place it’s never been before,” PGA president Ted Bishop said. “This is a huge day in golf.”
What became clear, as Bethpage Black starting hosting major tournaments, is New York golf fans are as loud and enthusiastic and supportive as those anywhere. With a much more colorful and vocal crowd than at other famed New York venues such as Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, or venerable Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, the crowd at Bethpage is more akin to a Sunday afternoon at the Meadowlands than a reverent Sunday parish.
Once the U.S. Open was held there, it didn’t take long for the idea of New York Ryder Cup to start circulating, and now that will become a ground-shaking reality.
“This is a very special day for me,” said PGA CEO Pete Bevacqua, a native of Westchester county who has played the Black more than 100 times. “Really, this is a dream come true.”
When the idea was first reported in August, Phil Mickelson was quoted as saying it would give the U.S. Ryder team a “distinct” advantage in the team competition against Europe, which has taken place biannually — with some exceptions — since 1927.
“I love it,” said Mickelson, who first broached the idea with Bishop at the 2010 Ryder Cup in Wales. “I’ve been quietly hoping it would go there for years. It’s the perfect site.”
By 2024, Mickelson will be 54 years old and very well could be the team’s captain. Few fans will forget the memorable Open in 2002 when he was serenaded with “Happy Birthday” up and down the fairways during the final round, when he placed second to Tiger Woods, the second of his record six runner-up finishes in his most coveted tournament. He also finished second in 2009 to Lucas Glover.
What this announcement also has done is take Bethpage from the grips of the USGA and give it to the PGA. Rarely does a course considered for the U.S. Open dabble in the hosting of PGA Tour events, and it has been made clear there will be no intentions of bringing another national championship back to the Black until well after 2024. (The U.S. Open is booked through 2020.)
But that doesn’t seem to bother the Bethpage cognoscenti much. For decades, the course sat as such a disrespected treasure, the current resurgence does not need a singular path for happiness. The people who have loved and cared for the course and ushered in this revival are concerned only with it solidifying its proper place among the world’s best.
“This is just a fabulous day in the story of Bethpage State Park,” said Dave Catalano, the former park executive who as a local kid starting picking up papers in the picnic area in 1967. “It’s continuing to take its rightful place as one of the world’s great golf courses.”