One weekend some time ago, a husband was trying to teach his wife to golf on the Black course at Bethpage State Park in Farmington, New York. A trailing foursome of golf tourists, who’d come from away to play the course, took offense about the pace of play. The parties exchanged volleys of insults and golf balls. While there were no casualties in this skirmish, the result is the now famous sign that warns the course is ‘only for highly skilled golfers’.
“The people of New York are very proud of the course and how it stands up to the best golfers in the world,” says Michael Hadley, golf course superintendent at Bethpage Black. “The history of the course keeps being written with each tournament played here.”
Bethpage Black will host the Ryder Cup on 26-28 September 2025 (Photo: Gary W. Kellner)
History will be written this September during the Ryder Cup, but Bethpage already shines a light into golf’s past, when more than 400 golf courses were built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the 1930s and 40s. Today, these carry forward the ideals of the great architects and expand public access to the game.
Bethpage has been called the ‘living new deal’ and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘lasting gift’ to golf. FDR was an avid golfer before he contracted polio, and was in a wheelchair when he called for the WPA to build golf courses.
In FDR: President, Statesman, Patrician… Golf Course Architect, historian Hal Phillips goes so far as to suggest that on Campobello – what Roosevelt called his ‘beloved island’ – the future president helped to design the local nine-hole course. He had an elegant swing, at 17 became treasurer of the golf club, and won the club championship five years later, the year he secretly proposed to Eleanor, who noted: “Golf was the game [he] enjoyed above all others. After he was stricken with polio, the one word that he never said again was ‘golf’.” Nevertheless, FDR made the stick and ball game one of the features of The New Deal.
In 1934, global trade shrank by more than 50 per cent. Environmental catastrophe stalked the heartlands and unemployment reached well over 20 per cent. Bank runs had wiped out the life savings of millions and Hooverville became a pleasant word for extensive hunger and homelessness. FDR directed that $4.9 billion (in its first year) would go to the WPA, which employed hundreds of thousands of American citizens to build infrastructure, and this included golf courses.
Franklin D. Roosevelt played a role in the design of the Campobello nine-hole course in New Brunswick. He became the club treasurer at 17 and won a club championship too (Photo: FDR Presidential Library/Flickr)
One doesn’t immediately think of the breadline when mentioning Donald Ross, Perry Maxwell, Robert Trent Jones and AW Tillinghast, but all completed designs and directed renovations for the WPA.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. suggests all of this would lead to the boom in municipal courses in the post-war era, during which the Ryder Cup has taken on religious fervour among golf’s players and fans.
“My dad worked with the WPA in New York State programmes,” Jones recounts. “During The Depression, he designed Amsterdam Golf Club but also worked expanding golf for the wealthy clubs as well. It was all a precursor for the post-Second World War municipal course boom as the victorious Americans relaxed into sports.”
Jones Sr. was a key player not only in new course designs, but also in directing the rescue of many of the private courses that had gone under in the 1920s and early 30s. The result of these public works projects feeds into what we now call the modern era: a growing middle class in the post-war economic boom, between 1950 and 1970, that would be at the centre of golf’s surge.
“There were many courses that never would have been built had it not been for WPA labour,” says Northeast-based golf course architect Mark Mungeam. “I dare say George Wright and Gannon Golf Course in Lynn would have been too expensive to spend public funds on their development. The same applies to Mount Hood in Melrose, Massachusetts. All were built on hilly, rocky ground.”
Mungeam is the heart and mind behind the resurgence of George Wright in Hyde Park, near Boston, built by the WPA between 1933 and 1938. He has directed the renovations there since 2003. “To be working on such historic sites, a Ross original design [George Wright], a Frederick Law Olmsted conceived and designed park, and the second oldest public golf course in the country [William Devine], it gives me goosebumps,” says Mungeam. “I feel honoured and proud to work on such historic sites. If you don’t have a connection to the past, without connecting to the past, you can’t do this work.”
Mark Mungeam has been restoring the George Wright Golf Course in Hyde Park, near Boston, since 2003 (Photo: Mungeam Golf Design)
Bethpage’s four courses are by far the largest of the WPA efforts, with an estimated 1,800 workers employed. Built on the sandy finger of Long Island, Bethpage was, according to the club’s consulting architect Rees Jones, AW Tillinghast’s answer to George Arthur Crump’s only course design – Pine Valley – and worked with “massive bunkers far from the greens” and rough that provides “no place to hide.”
Jones led the renovation in the late 1990s to get the course ready for the 2002 US Open and has overseen all subsequent changes. Hadley outlines the most recent work: “Since the 2019 PGA Championship, we added a new tee to hole one and moved and reshaped two of the fairway bunkers on the thirteenth. Other than that, fairways six, seven, ten and eleven were widened.
“The setup will lead to more scoring opportunities, which will lead to a more exciting tournament.” Some locals are reporting that the rough is at a shorter height than typical for public play. Nevertheless, the course Tiger Woods described as ‘a beast’ won’t be an easy test.
“We are tired, but excited,” says Hadley. “The tremendous build-out of bleachers and hospitality tents is a constant reminder of how big this tournament will be… that helps keep our drive and focus going.”
As we cheer on the competitors, we might also take a moment to celebrate the public parks and monuments that preserve the best of our shared history.
Mark Wagner is a golf historian and the author of Native Links (Back Nine Press, 2024).
Courses built by the WPA include:
Prairie Dunes Golf Club (Kansas): while Perry Maxwell started Prairie Dunes, the WPA also played a role in its early days. It has grown to be consistently ranked among the top golf courses in America.
Fort Lewis Golf Course (Washington): another standout WPA project, with a classic layout and significant military and recreational history. The course is praised for its challenging holes and attractive, traditional design.
A 1930s postcard of the Fort Lewis Golf Course, a WPA-funded public works project and part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal (Photo: Fort Lewis Cultural Resources Program)
Pelham Bay and Split Rock (New York): these courses were extensively renovated or built with WPA resources under the direction of Robert Moses.
Kissena Golf Course (New York): opened in 1935 with WPA support and remains a staple in the New York City public golf scene.
Elks Public Golf Course (Washington): this WPA-era design by Francis L. James was formerly known as Seminary Hill. It reflects the classic design features of the era and continues to serve its community.
Brown Deer Park Golf Course (Wisconsin): a public facility that was built in the 1930s, Brown Deer Park has hosted PGA Tour events and remains a beloved WPA-era gem.