Bethpage State Park courses - lots of renovations this year

[nevets88]

The piece focuses on Black, but I noted work on the bunker on #5 on Blue. There used to be a bunker there on the right, then they took it out, now they put it back? If they put it nearer to the green right, that's going to get a lot of people. The approach bunker on #11 on Green has gotten me a few times, now that's gone but they made the right side bunker bigger. The fairway bunker never came in play for me on Green #17, although I'm gonna guess the new bunker will be.

  Quote

With the pros headed back this way come next May, some of the Black's more familiar holes have undergone or will soon receive some tweaks, and it won't take long into their rounds for the everyday golfers to notice.  Five elm trees were moved from the left side of #1 fairway to the right, building on the wooded presence already in place inside the dogleg.  The aim is to make players "think twice before trying to take too much off the corner," says Andrew Wilson, the park's director of agronomy.

IMG_2453Nearby, the final stretch toward the 18th green will take a slightly modified route, as park crews are currently working on bumping out the left-side fairway bunkers and widening the fairway between the two clusters of traps.  Gone is the hourglass shape of the final fairway; instead, the short grass will be of equal width from tee to green.

"The most eye-catching project for our golfers is the green extension on #11," Wilson says.  "We worked with architects Rees Jones and Greg Muirhead to expand the green's back left."  Extending the green and reshaping part of the existing surface creates "four or five new pin locations that we are excited about," according to Wilson.  The reworked left greenside bunker will be ground under repair until new sod takes root.

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http://www.golfonlongisland.com/teebox/2018/04/bethpage-black-opens-tomorrow-with-renovated-greens-bunkers.html

I remember awhile back, many years ago, there were so many more trees and came back one year, where are all the trees? Courses still play slow though, no amount of renovations is going to change that.

[nevets88]

For posterity, before Google Maps gets updated:

Green #11

Blue #5 - Left of the tree's shadow on the right side ident is where the bunker used to be.