RYDER CUP
The Five Elements of a Great MatchPlay Course Ahead of the Ryder and Walker Cups, assessing Bethpage Black and Cypress Point BY DEREK DUNCAN
IT’S EASY TO MAKE GOLF courses play hard. Almost any course – even your own –
won and lost and the overall score of a player isn’t relevant – beckon a more nuanced kind of design. Matchplay is most compelling not when players are grinding out pars but when they’re pushed to their mental and emotional limits by unique hole set-ups and the strains of the match. Even shorter courses can provide exciting golf when the pressure is on to match your oppo- nent’s birdie. Ideally, the architecture must be capable of stressing skill, strat- egy and composure in equal measure.
This year’s Ryder Cup venue, the Black Course at Bethpage State Park in New York (September 26-28), is a proven championship strokeplay design that has battered fields during the 2002 and 2009 US Opens (won by Tiger Woods and Lucas Glover, respectively) and the 2019 PGA Championship (Brooks Koep- ka). It can be obviously brutal, but does it also possess the architectural intan- gibles that can enhance the theatrics of the world’s most anticipated matchplay contest?
can present a tournament-worthy test for great players if you stretch the tee markers as far back as they can go, grow the rough deep, tuck the pins and dry out the greens. Of course, a setup like that is directed at defending par, effective for stroke- play championships where the winner is determined by the lowest total score. Matchplay events – where holes are
PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN DENTON
60 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2025
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