# Bethpage State Park Black Course vs. Bethpage State Park Red Course: The Farmingdale Choice

Source: https://thecourserankings.com/blog/bethpage-state-park-black-course-vs-bethpage-state-park-red-course/

[The Course Rankings](/)

Course Comparisons / New York


Bethpage Black golf course. Photo: JazzyJoeyD, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Every golfer who drives to Farmingdale faces the same decision in the same parking lot. Camp overnight for the famous one, or walk onto its neighbor and be eating lunch by the time the Black Course groups reach the turn? Bethpage State Park has five courses. Two of them run this argument, and the honest answer depends on what you came for.

Both courses get their full due in [our Farmingdale town ranking](/blog/the-best-golf-courses-in-farmingdale-ny/), the Black has its own profile in [our Bethpage Black course profile](/blog/bethpage-state-park-black-course-profile/), and both figure in [the full New York state ranking](/blog/the-5-best-golf-courses-in-new-york/). Here they go head to head.

## The Black: the main event

You know the outline. A.W. Tillinghast with Joseph H. Burbeck, opened 1936, par 71, 7,468 yards, rating 77.5, slope 155, and a warning sign at the first tee that has been photographed more than most greens in America. It hosted the U.S. Open in 2002 and 2009, the PGA Championship in 2019, and the Ryder Cup in 2025. Tiger Woods won the 2002 Open as the only man under par. Brooks Koepka's 63 in 2019 is the course record.

The Black is called the People's Country Club, and the camping tells you why. Sleep in your car, get a tee time, play a Ryder Cup course on a public ticket. No private club in America offers that trade, because no private club is public. The golf itself is a sustained examination: length, accuracy, and recovery, in that order, for five hours, on your feet. There is no cart path escape from what this course is.

Its best point is also its problem. A 155 slope is a real cost. The Black will take a mid handicap golfer apart, slowly and completely, and some of those golfers will love every minute while others will quietly decide that championship suffering is a spectator sport. Both reactions are reasonable.

## The Red: the golfer's answer

The Red Course is the counterargument, and it is stronger than visitors expect. Golfweek ranked it No. 8 on its 2026 list of the best courses you can play in New York. A Golf Digest Long Island public panel ranked Bethpage Red third, behind only Bethpage Black and Montauk Downs. Third on Long Island, where public golf is deep and the competition is not polite, is a serious ranking for a course most visitors treat as a consolation prize.

That is the mistake. The Red exists in the Black's shadow because they share a parking lot, not because the golf is an afterthought. Players who come to Bethpage regularly know the pattern: the Black is the event, the Red is the round. You play the Red to have a good competitive game on a well regarded course without the overnight camp, without the five hour examination, and without needing the rest of the day to recover from your recreation.

Concede the Red its limit plainly. It has no warning sign, no Open, no Ryder Cup, and no story you will tell at dinner in ten years. If the Black is available and you have never played it, the Red is the wrong choice, because history is a real part of golf and the Black is history you can walk.

## The verdict

One more practical difference decides real trips. The Black demands planning: the camp, the early hour, the walk, the recovery. The Red fits the day you actually have. Golfers lie to themselves about which of those they want, usually in favor of glory, and then spend the Black round too tired to enjoy the holes they slept in a car to play. The Red never makes that demand. It is the rare famous park course whose second option protects you from your own ambition.

First trip, healthy legs, one round: the Black, and it is not close. The championship record, the 77.5 rating, the sign, the whole production. You came to Farmingdale for that.

Second day, second trip, or a group with mixed handicaps: the Red, without apology. It is a top ten public course in New York state by Golfweek's list, it will test a good player honestly, and it will send everybody to lunch in a better mood. The smart Bethpage weekend is both: Black on Saturday for the story, Red on Sunday for the golf. The parking lot lets you do it. Few famous places are generous enough to offer the sequel right next door.

**Reader responses are open.** Please cite a specific hole, a price, or a round you have played.