Azinger, the 2008 United States captain, blasted this week’s Ryder Cup venue in an appearance on the “Straight Facts Homie” podcast.
“I really don’t like Bethpage Black,” said Azinger, who also made four Ryder Cup starts as a player. “There’s a lot of awkward angles, downhill tee shots to fairways that angle away, uphill second shots where you can’t see the landing area. It’s just hard, and you cannot fluke your way around there.”
In his view, Azinger is not alone in his opinion. “I feel like Keegan’s going to have to get these guys on a mission and on a mission quickly and single-minded to figure out how to fall in love with Bethpage Black. I guarantee you they don’t love it either,” Azinger said. “Me and you don’t love it. They don’t love it. Europe doesn’t care what the course is. Our guys might.”
Azinger also asserted that most of the United States players don’t know the course. “I think one of the biggest mistakes that the American Ryder Cup team always seems to make, or the PGA of America, is they go to courses that we’re not familiar with,” Azinger said. It’s worth noting that the Black hosted the PGA Championship just six years ago, although the past two European Ryder Cup venues in Italy and France hosted DP World Tour events in the lead-up to the Ryder Cup.
One of the expected advantages for the Americans will be the raucous New York crowds, which have shown a penchant at past Bethpage events to be some of the more boisterous in the spot. However, Azinger even sees that as a potential problem.
“I feel if the U.S. gets off to a bad start, even the crowd can be volatile there,” Azinger explained. “That’s why I told Keegan right out of the gate, ‘Buddy, you gotta win the crowd.’”
Azinger, whose captaincy at the 2008 Ryder Cup is often viewed as one of the high points of the American club this century, did have one final piece of advice for Bradley.
“I wouldn’t play videos of people like Michael Jordan wishing them luck and the President wishing them luck, that just makes you want to throw up,” Azinger said. “It doesn’t help me. I already know they want us to win. It didn’t help me ever, I hated it. It made me more nervous.”
The PGA of America announced last week that Bethpage Black will host the 2033 PGA Championship and 2028 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. It previously served as host to the 2002 (Tiger Woods) and 2009 (Lucas Glover) U.S. Opens, and held its first PGA Championship in 2019 (Brooks Koepka). The Black is ranked seventh in Golf Digest’s Top 100 Public courses.
