Sorry for the long read. CLIFFS AT BOTTOM
As some of you might know the US Open was held at Bethpage State Park on Long Island in 2002 and is returning there next year for the 2009 US Open. Well about a year ago I read this book, Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black in which John Feinstein described what went in to bringing the Open to the first public course ever. Six months ago the plan really took off and this past weekend we went and played “The Black.”
Here is my timeline:
6/21/08 – 12:05 AM – After registering my license number with the New York State Parks department I tried to make a tee time for Friday 6/27/08 but the earliest I could get was 4:30 PM. Since that tee time sucked we decided that we were going to do what all true golf fans do and go to the golf course and camp out in order to get a tee time the day we want.
6/26/08 – 12:15 PM – I left work on my way to Jersey City to pick my cousin up who flew in from Phoenix to play Bethpage.
6/26/08 – 8:00 PM – Hung out for about in hour or so and decided to head towards Long Island because I was nervous that there would be a bunch of cars camping out to golf on Friday. The Holland Tunnel pretty much sucks even at 8 at night so it took a while to get across but once we did it was smooth sailing out to Long Island.
6/26/08 – 9:00 PM – Arrived at Bethpage State Park and took about ten minutes to find the designated parking spots for people to camp out in order to get a tee time the following day. These parking spots were at the extreme end of the parking lot so no wonder we couldn’t find them. We pulled up just as the first car was parking so we ended up being in spot #2 and that meant that at 4:30 AM we would have second choice of tee times for Friday.
6/26/08 – 6/27/08 – 9:30 PM – 3:30 AM – Turns out that the guys in spot #1 went to high school with my cousin so we ended up shooting the shit with them all night and between the two groups ended up drinking a ton of beer. Numerous shenanigan ensued such as a Nassau County Sheriff ordering us a pizza, some asshole smashing into a telephone pole and knocking out power to all of Bethpage, and a Bethpage employee telling my buddy to get is fucking had off his truck. All in all it was a great night but knowing that at 4:30 they were going to hang out wristbands I knew it was time for sleep.
6/27/08 – 4:30 AM – After about 25 minutes of sleep a truck pulled up and it was the guy handing out bracelets and bakery tickets which would equal our spot in line at the tee time office. The four of us jumped in the car and headed over to the office just as they were calling our number. We got in there and made a 7:18 AM tee time. Thank god that part of the trip was over.
4:45 AM – 6:45 AM – We had some time to kill so we walked around a little bit, had some breakfast and washed up in the bathroom before it was time to head out to the course.
7:18 AM – We teed off for one of the most grueling rounds of golf I have ever played. The rough was long, the fairways were tight and by 8:00 AM it was 90 degrees out.
The round took us about 5 hours and it was an amazing experience. I shot a 96 and made a birdie on the 606 yard par 5.
CLIFFS:
Camped out to play Bethpage Black where they play the US Open.
Stayed up all night, played at 7 AM and shot a 96.
Here are some pics:
