Woods? Mickelson? Villegas? -nope, just the artist!

the artist, Steven Anthony Salerno on the range -visit sasgolf.com to view his golf art
photo by: James "Vegas" Yang

This is a photo of me one recent morning hitting a few warm-up shots at the driving range at Bethpage State Park golf complex, home of the infamous Black Course, site of the 2002 and 2009 US Open Championships. There are five course at Bethpage, and on that particular day we were not able to snag a tee time on the preferred Black Course, or even the Red Course... but played the Blue Course, a short-ish rolling hills layout of about 6,600 yards from the back tees. The USGA uses the Blue Course at Bethpage each year as a New York State local qualifying site for the USGA Public Links Championship. I played in this qualifier event a while back, with most participants being good college aged players... and the one young man I was playing with that day drove a level fairway 356 yard par four -on the fly!


Note: see the artificial grass mat I am hitting from? Don't worry, when the pros play the Black Course during the US Open they get a pristine fairway in an adjacent course to use as their practice facility.