Black and Blue

By DAVID ALLEN
Equipment and Instruction Editor, GolfChannel.com

If Rees Jones is “The Open Doctor,” then Long Island teaching professional Darrell Kestner is “The Open Patient.” Jones has redesigned seven U.S. Open venues, including Bethpage Black, site of this month’s U.S. Open; Kestner, the head professional at Deepdale Golf Club in Manhasset, N.Y., has competed in eight national championships, including the 2002 Open at Bethpage.
 
While Bethpage Black is a true public golf course, there are few, if any, golfers who have played the course more than Kestner. Counting local Metropolitan PGA sectional championships, New York State Opens, U.S. Opens and casual rounds, Kestner has played the course about 75 times. One of those rounds, a 65 at the Metropolitan PGA Section Assistants’ Championship in 1987, served as the course record until Craig Thomas of Metropolis Country Club came along and broke it with a 64 in 2007.
 
Kestner struggled with the lengthy U.S. Open setup in 2002, however, shooting 77-86 to miss the cut, as he says, “by a mile.” But he wasn’t the only player to scuffle along in the second round. Among the other players to shoot over 80 on a cold, damp Friday were Adam Scott (80), Pat Perez (81), Paul Azinger and Stewart Cink (82), and Michael Campbell (83). Campbell won the U.S. Open three years later at Pinehurst.
 
“I’ve played in eight U.S. Opens – at Shinnecock, Oakland Hills, Olympic and Pebble Beach – and it (Bethpage) is by far the hardest,” Kestner said. “It’s outgrown me.”
 
Kestner failed to get through U.S. Open local qualifying this year, so he won’t see the longer, even meaner Bethpage this year. Not that he minds all that much.
 
“At least I don’t have to play Bethpage now,” he joked. “I’m not sure I can play that course anymore. At 6,800 yards, yes, but not at 7,400.”
 
For some insight on how Bethpage will play later this month, here’s a hole-by-hole blow from Kestner, including some of his recollections from the 2002 Open:
 

 
Hole 1: Par 4, 430 Yards A dogleg right, this hole plays significantly downhill. Players will either hit 3-wood to the corner of the dogleg or cut the corner with driver, leaving a short iron or wedge into a narrow green. “If there’s a breather hole on the course it’s No. 1, except you’re so nervous because it’s the first hole of the U.S. Open,” says Kestner. “You’re trying not hit people in the gallery.”
 
Hole 2: Par 4, 430 yards A dogleg left, the second shot plays significantly uphill. From the fairway, all you’re looking at is the top of the flagstick. “It plays a club-and-a-half longer up that hill,” says Kestner. “In 2002, I’d see other players walking up to the green expecting to find their ball, only to discover they were in the bunker. They could not believe it was them. You DO NOT want to be short and right in that greenside bunker, because then you’re looking at a plugged lie and a sure bogey.”
 
Hole 3: Par 3, 232 yards A new teeing ground now makes this the longest par-3 on the course. The green might also be the narrowest on the course. “In the 2008 New York State Open pro-am, we played the new tee because they were testing them out for the Open,” says Kestner. “I got lucky and hit a perfect 3-wood to about 3 feet and made birdie. It was the best birdie I’ve ever made on that hole. You’re playing into the prevailing wind so it plays longer than the yardage, and you have to be so accurate with your tee shot. If you’re long and right, you’re dead, and if you’re short and left you’re probably plugged.”
 

The par-5 fourth hole at Bethpage Black

 
Hole 4: Par 5, 517 yards The most photographed hole on the course, due to the cross-bunker which separates the fairway in two. The driving zone sits significantly lower than the green, and the green slopes front to back away from the player, making it unreceptive to long approach shots. “It’s hard to hit in three shots, let alone two,” says Kestner. “You’ve got to hit a towering iron shot in there because you’ve got this huge elevation change, and a very narrow, fast green. A flat shot is not going to hold that green.”