Bethpage Black is no ordinary Ryder Cup stage. Starting on Friday and running through to Sunday, the contest arrives on Long Island at one of the game’s most intimidating public courses. Cut into sandy ridges and opened in 1936, the A.W. Tillinghast design is notorious for the warning sign at its first tee: “The Black Course is an extremely difficult course which we recommend only for highly skilled golfers.” It has hosted two U.S. Opens and the 2019 PGA Championship, where even the world’s best were pushed to the edge by narrow fairways, thick rough and elevated greens. Now it becomes the first public course in the New York area to welcome the Ryder Cup, with fans expected to turn the opening and closing holes into a roaring amphitheatre.

Bethpage Black demands that players grab birdies early, hang on through the bruising middle stretch, and then face a nervy finish under the gaze of a New York crowd. The first hole sets the stage. From its elevated tee, a controlled fade into the left half of the fairway opens up a short-iron approach to a small, crowned green. It is less about power than about composure, making it the right kind of hole to start a match.

The real pivot on the front nine is the second. At under 400 yards, it invites temptation. Captains can push the tee forward so that big hitters have a crack at the green, but trouble waits everywhere: deep bunkers flank both sides and the elevated surface demands perfect spin. The smarter play is often a lay-up to a full wedge, but that strategy can look timid if the opponent drives it near the apron.

Scoring chances don’t disappear entirely. The par-5 fourth offers a window if the drive finds the right plateau. Strong players can reach in two, but the second must fly high and land softly on a narrow, perched green. By contrast, the eighth is a momentum swing, a mid-to-long par-3 over water where short is dead and long is no bargain either.

The back nine is where Bethpage shows its teeth. Ten and twelve are marathon par-4s lined with cross bunkers and crowned greens that punish even slight errors. Thirteen offers brief relief as a three-shot par-5, though its cross-bunkered lay-up zone punishes anything half-hearted. The fourteenth is the most generous birdie chance left, a short-iron par-3 where the real test is hitting the exact yardage rather than showing bravery.

Then comes the beast. The fifteenth, climbing steeply to a two-tiered green, is the hardest hole on the course. Approaches that are even slightly under-hit roll back down the slope, while misses to the left almost guarantee bogey. It is a hole that exposes nerves and rewards only the most disciplined, high-flighted iron play.

Seventeen, a long par-3 split by a central ridge, is a guessing game in a crosswind and will swing matches late. Eighteen finally eases up. Find the fairway and a short iron into a receptive green offers a last roar in front of the clubhouse grandstand.

The blueprint is clear. Take advantage of holes 1, 2, and 4, respect 10 through 12, survive the brutal 15th, and attack if the number is right on 17 and 18. At Bethpage, the side that converts its few birdie chances and avoids mistakes on the monsters will control the Ryder Cup.