Bethpage State Park - Red Course

The Red Course at Bethpage State Park is one of three A.W. Tillinghast designs that opened at the Long Island facility in the mid-1930s, offering a par-70 test that balances accessibility with genuine strategic interest across its rye grass fairways and complexly contoured greens. Less severe than the neighboring Black Course, the Red remains a challenging public layout that shares the same classic Tillinghast architecture shaped during the Works Progress Administration era.

The Red Course at Bethpage State Park opened in 1935 as part of among the ambitious public works golf projects in American history—a Depression-era undertaking that transformed a private Long Island estate into a five-course public golf complex that would serve New York State residents for generations. The land's golf history began in 1912, when Benjamin Franklin Yoakum, a railroad executive, purchased 1,368 acres in Old Bethpage and hired architect Devereux Emmet to design a private course. Emmet's layout opened in 1923 and was leased to the Lenox Hills Country Club. Yoakum died in 1929, and the Long Island State Park Commission, led by New York Master Builder Robert Moses, acquired the property in 1931 for .1 million, assuming management through a lease in 1932 before the sale was finalized in May 1934. Moses renamed the facility Bethpage State Park, at the suggestion of Nassau County Historian Jesse Merritt, after the 15-square-mile tract purchased by Thomas Powell in 1695. Moses proposed building the new courses entirely with work-relief labor, and the Red Course was constructed as part of a WPA (Works Progress Administration) project employing more than 1,800 men at its peak.

An idle furniture factory was converted with work-relief labor to produce all the furniture for the new clubhouse. The Red and Blue courses opened in 1935; the Black opened in 1936 after one additional season of construction. The Yellow Course, designed by Alfred Tull, followed in 1958, bringing the complex to five regulation 18-hole courses — the largest concentration of public golf under one roof in the United States at the time. A. W. Tillinghast is credited with the design of the Red, Blue, and Black courses, though the historical record is more nuanced.

Tillinghast was hired on December 30, 1933, months after the routing and layout of the three courses had already been established under the direction of Park Superintendent Joseph H. Burbeck. His contract paid 0 a day for a maximum of 15 days of work. Modern golf historians credit Burbeck's team with much of the ground-level execution while Tillinghast's design philosophy influenced the broad character of the layout. The Red Course is best understood as a collaborative product of the state park system. The Red Course plays slightly shorter and more accessibly than the Black but shares the same forested, hilly Long Island terrain and many of the Black's design characteristics.

The routing occupies dramatic topography with significant elevation changes, abundant doglegging holes, and a tree-lined character that creates a sense of isolation between fairways. Nearly every green is open to the front, allowing golfers to run the ball onto the putting surface — a design trait consistent with Tillinghast's strategic approach — while wide fairway corridors and expansive bunkers echo the vocabulary of the Black Course without its extreme difficulty. Bethpage State Park charges green fees for New York State residents at rates well below private club costs, fulfilling the democratic vision Moses articulated when he proposed the complex. The five-course complex, built by relief workers during the Depression, remains among the significant achievements in the history of public golf in the United States.