45th Ryder Cup

A whooping and a hollering, it'll be a surprise if Trump doesn't score the winning stroke!

When a Golf Course goes to the trouble of putting a notice up by the 1st Tee reading “WARNING The Black Course Is An Extremely Difficult Course Which We Recommend Only For Highly Skilled Golfers.” you’ve got to worry about what has prompted the management to put this notice up. One might speculate that it possibly stemmed from some frustrated golfer from Arkansas, who had become so enrage with his game, that he simply ran amok with his H&K semi-automatic in some ghastly display of poor golfing etiquette.

Bethpage Black is a public golf course, in Farmingdale NY, is managed by the State, and is available to the public, fulfilling a worthy vision of the creation of a “people’s country club”, making it a “bucket-list” destination for many golfers despite its toughness.

It features a challenging layout designed by A.W. Tillinghast and boasts, if that’s the right word, narrow fairways, high rough, deep bunkers, and fast, small greens. Those elements make it consistently difficult across all parts of the game, even at Major Championship level. The Beast, as the course is nicknamed, has previously welcomed the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens and the 2019 PGA Championship, as well as this year’s 45th Ryder Cup, and as a result, it has achieved some international recognition for its difficulty.

Beginning this Friday, this is the 45th time that the United States and Europe have squared off in the biennial team golf competition using a match play format. This means that the winner (and his team) of each match will receive 1 point, with ½ a point each for a draw. There are 4 foursome matches on Friday and Saturday morning and 4 four-ball matches on Friday and Saturday afternoon. Players take alternate shots in foursome matches, and the player with the lowest score from each pair is used in four-ball matches. On Sunday, there are 12 singles matches. With 28 points available in total, Europe require 14 points to retain the Ryder Cup and United States need 14 ½ points to win the Ryder Cup.

The price has been climbing, slowly