Sports

Seeing red over being in the Black at Bethpage

We value our image in these parts. Call us loud, impatient and bossy, and it sounds like a compliment. We’ll tell you what we think even if you didn’t ask. We’re competitive, hard-nosed, boisterous, and even rowdy at times. We like things hard. Don’t call us soft.

It’s why Bethpage Black is such a fitting golf course for this area. It fits our attitude. It’s brutally tough, unrelenting, and recommended only for highly skilled golfers. That’s what the sign on the first tee says.

There was a sense of pride and satisfaction watching the world’s best golfers struggle mightily during the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens played on the Black. The scoring averages were 74.91 in 2002 and 72.8 in 2009. And those events were played at par 70.

In 2002, Tiger Woods won at 3-under and was the only player to finish under par. The Black proved as brutal for the pros as it is for the weekend golfer. We applauded that.

That’s why anyone who cares about the Black had to be disappointed with yesterday’s opening round of The Barclays, when the famed public course played more like a pitch and putt. At least that’s the way it seemed.

Padraig Harrington set the standard with a 7-under 64. More than half the field shot par or better. On this day, the Black got burned.

Perhaps it was too much to expect the Black to play as difficult as it did in the U.S. Open. The rough isn’t ankle deep and the greens aren’t cut smooth as marble. But a lack of wind and receptive greens made for ideal scoring conditions for those who found the fairway off the tee.

“With no wind, you’ve got to kind of attack the golf course,” said Zach Johnson, who opened with a 3-under 68. “If it gets windy, it gets really hard to hit the fairways, and if you don’t drive it in the fairways this golf course is very tough.”

Harrington talked about having to change his mindset from thinking it was a U.S. Open where par was a good score to getting aggressive and making birdies. After making the turn at 1-under, he played the more difficult back nine in 6-under.

“It’s the FedEx Playoffs,” Harrington said. “You’re going to need to be 12-under par at the end of the week or who knows, but it ain’t going to be level par.”

The pressure of winning a major championship is also absent. Yes, the FedEx Cup is a big deal. There’s $10 million at stake. But it’s a four-tournament event. Yesterday was just the start of a long grind.

How vulnerable was the Black? British Open champion Ernie Els (3-under) had one stretch on the front nine when he played four holes in 5-under par. After back-to-back birdies at the fifth and sixth, two par 4s, he made eagle at the par-5 seventh, followed by a birdie at the par-3 eighth. Harrington made four consecutive birdies on the back nine as did Rickie Fowler (4-under), though two of his came on chip-ins.

The way Harrington ravaged the Black seemed unprecedented. But it’s not. Mike Weir shot a 6-under 64 in the first round of the 2009 U.S. Open and eventual winner Lucas Glover fashioned a 64 in the second round. Rain throughout the weekend made a mess of the final two rounds, making the Black play longer than its measured 7,426 yards.

In 2002, Woods had the low opening round with a 3-under 67 and followed with rounds of 68, 70 and 72 as the Black lived up to the image of the people who play it. It was tough and demanding.

It turned soft in the opening round of The Barclays yesterday. Anything but soft.

george.willis@nypost.com