FARMINGDALE, NY—The preliminaries are now concluded—let the playoffs begin.
The Barclays returns to the famed Black Course at Bethpage State Park and the ensuing battle among the top players in the world will certainly make for great theater as the end of the 2016 season is now upon us. This week’s event has plenty of key storylines—the most significant is what players are able to make the final push to make the eight automatic picks for this year’s Ryder Cup Matches at Hazeltine National in Minnesota in late September.
The return to Bethpage is also a big time moment on the ‘16 golf calendar. Having hosted the ’02 and ‘09 U.S. Opens, the Black Course will stage its 2nd Barclays—the first coming in ’12 with Nick Watney winning. The storied A.W. Tillinghast design—which was tweaked by architect Rees Jones prior to both Opens—is also scheduled to stage the ‘19 PGA Championship, the ’21 and ‘27 Barclays and the ’24 Ryder Cup Matches. A most impressive array of championship golf events.
The par-71 layout can be stretched to a max of 7,468 yards and defending champion and world number one Jason Day will join a select field of 124 other players to see who is best able to overcome what the Black provides. The facility features a total of 90-holes and straddles the Nassau and Suffolk County border. The scale of the Black Course is what makes it so compelling. The course starts and ends at its famed clubhouse which sits above the Black’s 1st tee and 18th green. The rest of the course takes an impressive tour over the rolling terrain where many of the putting surfaces are perched on rises mandating quality approach shots time after time. Then there is the massive sand bunkers which come in all sizes and shapes—the most fascinating coming on two of the par-5 holes—the 4th where the bunker separates the bottom and top half of the hole and at the 7th where the bunker is nothing less than a sea of sand confronting the players off the tee.
