Bethpage State Park - Green Course

Bethpage State Park's Green Course is the oldest of the five Bethpage layouts, originally built in 1923 by Devereux Emmet as the private Lenox Hills Country Club before being acquired by New York State in 1932. A.W. Tillinghast modified the course in 1934 to accommodate the expansion of the park's full five-course complex. Today it serves as one of New York's most accessible public golf destinations, playing to 6,262 yards with a par of 71 on bentgrass through the rolling Long Island terrain of Nassau County.

The Green Course at Bethpage State Park has the longest history of any course in the park, tracing its origins to 1923 when Benjamin Franklin Yoakum commissioned Devereux Emmet to design an 18-hole golf course on his Long Island estate. Emmet was among the era's most productive golf course architects, having designed courses at Garden City, Congressional, and dozens of other clubs across the Northeast, and his work at what would become the Green Course reflected his characteristic use of rolling terrain and natural site features. Yoakum operated the original course as the private Lenox Hills Country Club, a venue that served a wealthy Long Island membership through the early 1930s. The course's fate changed fundamentally with the Depression and the ambitions of Robert Moses, the Long Island State Park Commission's imperious director. Moses acquired the Bethpage property in 1932, opening Bethpage State Park with Emmet's original course — now designated the Green — as the public's initial access to Bethpage golf.

A.W. Tillinghast, one of the titans of American golf course architecture and the designer of Winged Foot, Baltusrol, and Philadelphia Cricket Club among others, made substantial modifications to the Green Course in 1934. Tillinghast's work at Bethpage was part of a Depression-era WPA project in which he was engaged to create the Black, Red, and Blue courses at the park while simultaneously revising the Green to accommodate the expanded five-course complex. His alterations to the Green preserved Emmet's essential routing while updating certain holes to function better alongside the new courses being carved from the surrounding terrain. The Green Course today plays as the most accessible of the five Bethpage courses — wider fairways, less severe hazards, and a manageable length of 6,262 yards at par 71 make it the natural starting point for golfers working their way through the Bethpage complex.

Unlike the Black Course's forbidding signage warning high-handicappers away, the Green welcomes players of all abilities, serving as both an introduction to Bethpage golf and a serious test in its own right. Its historical significance as the original Bethpage course, the Lenox Hills foundation on which the entire park was built, gives it a heritage unmatched by the more celebrated courses that followed it. Bethpage State Park Green Course plays approximately 6,267 yards from the championship tees on an Alfred Tull design as part of the Bethpage State Park complex in Farmingdale, New York — one of the five courses at the most celebrated public golf facility in the United States. Tull designed the Green Course as part of the Bethpage expansion program whose mission to provide championship-quality public golf to New York State Park visitors during the Depression era reflected the broader New Deal recreational investment in public facilities across the metropolitan area. The Green Course provides a more accessible length and challenge level than the Black or Blue, making it one of the preferred options for less experienced players visiting the Bethpage complex for the first time — a layout whose design and conditioning reflect the state park system's commitment to maintaining all five courses to standards consistent with Bethpage's championship reputation.

The New York State Golf Association includes the Green Course among its member facilities, and the layout serves the Bethpage complex's mission of providing accessible public championship golf to the full range of golfer abilities. The Farmingdale location gives the Green Course the same metropolitan accessibility that defines the entire Bethpage complex — a democratic public golf experience whose availability to any golfer regardless of financial means reflects the New York State Parks system's core recreational mission. For golfers visiting Bethpage who want an introduction to the complex without the difficulty and length of the Black, the Green Course provides a quality public experience whose conditioning and historical context create a more rewarding round than most metropolitan public courses can offer.