Bethpage State Park: Red

A.W. Tillinghast’s Red course opened in 1935—a year before the famed Black—and is considered by many, including us, to be Bethpage’s second-best layout. The challenge of the Red starts on the first tee, where the typical crowd gathered by the starter’s booth watches as golfers try to find the narrow fairway guarded by thick rough.

Though the opening and closing stretch of holes are tree-lined, the routing shakes free at the par-4 eighth and breaks into a vast plain littered with fescue and bunkers. Here it emulates the same kind of rugged muscularity and wasp-waist bunkering the Black is known for, though with slightly more room to play off the tee and less dire consequence for missing shots. But in the Red you get the whiff of a major championship design and something far more profound than any run-of-the-mill "second best" golf course.