Bethpage Blue

The Blue Course was the first of A.W. Tillinghast's Bethpage courses to open in 1935, debuting months ahead of the Red and a year before the famed Black. Built during the Depression as part of the state's ambitious public-park golf project on Long Island, it gave New Yorkers affordable access to well-designed golf. The Blue's layout later evolved: when architect Alfred Tull created the Yellow Course in 1958, he folded several original Blue holes into the Yellow, then designed replacement holes and revised others on the Blue, making today's course a Tillinghast-Tull hybrid. Like its neighbors, the Blue is a public, state-run course, and in 1936 the park hosted the U.S. Amateur Public Links, an early marker of Bethpage's championship pedigree.