Bethpage State Park: Red Course

The Red Course at Bethpage State Park is the historic companion to the Black, an A.W. Tillinghast design that opened in 1935, a year before the Black, and is widely considered the second-best course on the Bethpage campus. At 6,756 yards par 71 with a 73.0 rating and 127 slope, the Red delivers much of the Black's strategic variety with slightly more fairway width and less dire consequence for missed shots, making it a more playable round that still rewards thoughtful play over raw power. The Red's signature sequence includes the par-4 8th, which breaks from a tree-lined corridor into a vast plain littered with fescue and Tillinghast's trademark wasp-waist bunkering, a hole that reads like a Black-Course audition. Subtle angles, protective cross-bunkers, and elevated green sites define the round. Most significantly in golf-history terms, the Red hosted the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship in 1936, its very first year of operation, one of the earliest major events played on a New York State Parks muni. For the Long Island visitor who has already played the Black, the Red is the second-day round of choice, same Tillinghast DNA, same NYS park pricing.