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Ryder Cup 2025: Where should I post up at Bethpage? A scientific ranking of the best spectator holes

I'm going to start with something annoying here—to get the readers on my side early—which is that the Ryder Cup is very fun to watch if you're a spoiled media member like me who can get inside the ropes and follow specific matches from start to finish. But if you're a civilian with a ticket? You really, really need a game plan. It's probably the hardest event in the world to navigate if you want to see actual golf. There are fewer matches—just four per session until Sunday—and massive crowds of large drunken people who will make it hard for you to see a player hit a shot. The good news is that the atmosphere is awesome, but the bad news is pretty much everything else.

There's only one solution: You gotta post up. You have to pick a spot and stay there, because if you try to wander and get lucky, you'll see almost nothing and realize with a sinking sense of dread that you spent $6,000 to get bodied by a fat sweaty shirtless guy wearing Viking horns and a stars-and-stripes thong.

Andrew Redington

I'm here to help. I've crunched the numbers, studied Bethpage Black and am prepared to present a comprehensive ranking of the best places to sit at the actual course. First, though, I have a few pieces of generic advice:

A: Be at a green. The only exception here is if you're heading to the first tee for the atmosphere. Watching tee shots from the grandstand or approaches from the fairway is going to be massively anticlimactic. At the green, you can see the approach shots land and players win holes by making putts (or lose them by gagging). It's the most electric part of the course, and the rankings below refer to having a spot by the green. I refuse to even rank tees and fairways; if you end up there, something has gone horribly wrong.

B: Be by a TV screen. Even with the best seat in the house, you'll maybe get to see 45 minutes of live golf, and half the fun is going to be following the action everywhere else on the course with all the fans around you.

C: If you're in it to get hammered, be close to both a booze vendor and a bathroom. (I shouldn't have to tell you this.)

D: Get there early or you'll be boxed out. You can't just decide at 10 a.m. that you want to go sit in the grandstand on 18.

OK, now we're ready. What follows is a ranking of every spectator hole at Bethpage, starting with the worst and working toward the best. Study up, and if you want to be like me, you can reference this video, which has some good flyovers, yardages and some nice hearty stats.

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10. 12th Green (Par 4, 496 yards)

This one's a bit of a novelty, because frankly, Ryder Cup courses have not been particularly challenging in the recent past, and we're not used to seeing these types of holes that would make even a USGA official salivate. This is the second-hardest hole on the course, and there will be something grimly fascinating about watching guys try to grind out a 4, especially in the singles session. (This might be the first time we see two teams say "good good" on the tee.) We're flying a little bit blind in terms of whether a U.S. Open-style beast of a hole will be any fun in match play, and while I think the medium-hard holes could end up a little boring, there's a sort of car-crash quality that might make it compelling. You should get a bonus view of 5 green, too, but not much else.

9. 2nd Green (Par 4, 389 yards)

Don't let the short length fool you—this one doglegs hard enough to the left that only a true psychopath would try to cut the "corner." Maybe Bryson DeChambeau is the psycho we need, but most guys will take less club and try to stay in the fairway. After that, though, they'll still have a nice little wedge into the green, and though the hole loses points for being early in the round, it should yield a few birdies. Not a bad spectator option, in a pinch. The reason I have it rated among the worst of the grandstands is because while you'll get to see every group, it's in that tough spot where the excitement of the first hole has worn off, but you're nowhere near the dramatic parts of the match. However, sitting here should also give you a nice view of No. 3, a nasty little par-3 with a thin, long green that averages roughly 45 feet deep. At the 2009 U.S. Open it was the hardest par 3 on the course and had the highest three-putt percentage anywhere.

8. 15th Green (Par 4, 477 yards)

Here we have a comically hard hole, the hardest Bethpage Black has to offer, where you're completely screwed if you missed the fairway and almost half the field in a stroke-play event will make bogey. How does that translate to match play? I've seen some takes that hard holes in general aren't as fun at a Ryder Cup—you want a drivable par 4 or a weird par 3—and I think I mostly agree. Blow-ups are fascinating in stroke play, but can be anticlimactic in match play. Still, the team strategy here will be fascinating, and coming late in the layout, it will be dramatic as hell. You might even see a match end here—17 of 140 have done so since 2014—and only 10 percent of matches will have ended before, so you'll see almost every player. The downside is that based on the location on the course, you're not going to be able to see much else.

7. 13th Green (Par 5, 608 yards)

At first glance, this one appears to be one of the toughies that violates a few key principles of what makes a good match-play hole—it's long as can be, the tee shot is maybe the hardest on the course, and the second shot will average around 285 yards. BUT! Think about what it's like to watch this one from the green. Not only will you get to see a few players try to bomb it on from a mile away, but when players lay up, you'll get to see those fun short approaches that flirt with the hole. It's going to be a pretty neat theater, very late in the game, and despite the length it's not impervious to birdies. If anything, I've probably underrated it here, because you should also be able to see a bit of No. 14, one of my beloved par 3s.

6. 1st Green (Par 4, 397 yards)

You may think the first green is a little early in the match to be worthwhile, but it seems like wild things happen there routinely—I'm thinking of Viktor Hovland's chip-in in the second match in Rome, among others—and the tension is so unbearably high as the players hit the course that it's truly great theater. This hole in particular skews slightly easy by Bethpage standards, so you'll see some birdie looks, and winning the first is always more critical than you'd think in match play. This will be a highly underrated spot, particularly because you should get a solid view of the par-3 17th later in the day, but it will fill up fast as fans spill over from the full first-tee grandstand.

5. 11th Green (Par 4, 435 yards)

Jared C. Tilton

At some point, you should ask yourself why you're at Bethpage—is it to see as much golf as possible or to see dramatic golf? Because if it's the former, I've heard the inside scoop that the 11th green grandstand is as good as it gets. It's a bit of a hike from the clubhouse, but that's relative, and it probably means if you get there early you won't have quite as much competition for the seats. So why is it so good? Well, not only do you get to see this short par 4, but you'll also have views of 10 tee, 12 tee, 9 green and 7 fairway. A view of two greens is, by itself, almost worth the price of admission. You're also going to get to see every match on the course here, because, fun historical fact, the 11th hole is the only hole before No. 14 where a match has actually ended in the last decade. In related news, it is also the only hole that has made Scottie Scheffler cry.

Jamie Squire

4. 1st Tee and 18th Green (Par 4, 397 yards; Par 4, 411 yards)

Jamie Squire

This is the biggest structure on the course, and for good reason—the first tee and the last hole are two of the top attractions. So why is it only fourth in my rankings? Well, let's start with the first tee. I had my mind blown there at Gleneagles, the first Ryder Cup abroad I ever attended, but since then I've been just slightly underwhelmed a little more each time. If you're not a spoiled princeling like me, you'll probably love it, but this is just a cynic's warning that it's become a little more produced and a little less organic with time. If this was just a group of golf nuts going insane as the sun rose over Bethpage and again in the half-drunken early afternoon, I'd say go crazy. But considering that your spectating experience is over pretty quickly and all you're seeing is tee shots (very easy ones, no less), it would be irresponsible of me not to offer at least a small warning.

HOWEVER, you do get a second bang for your buck with the 18th green. The downside here is obvious—you're not going to see every match. You're not even going to see half of them, in fact, because since 1983 only 38.7 percent of matches have made it to 18, a number that has gone down to 31 percent since 2014. But here's the thing—the matches you do see are going to be awesome. Just think about 2023 alone, where if you sat on 18 you would have seen Rahm's dramatic tie against Scheffler, Rose's putt where he pointed at his teammates, and Cantlay draining a clutch putt late Saturday just before Joe LaCava danced a tango on Rory's line. You won't see every moment here, but you will see the best moments. It’s a true risk-reward choice.

3. 14th Green (Par 3, 161 yards)

Jared C. Tilton

This is almost the best of everything, to me. You can tell by now I have a bad case of par-3 favoritism, because you can see the player teeing off, the ball in the air, the landing and all the ensuing putts. You're probably also going to see every single match—since 2014, only one match out of 140 has finished before the 14th hole. It's the absolute sweet spot for seeing a dramatic part of the match, not missing out on any player and getting the thrill of a par 3. This one is better than most, because it's one of the easiest holes on the course and will produce a lot of birdie looks. If I had a ticket at Bethpage, this would be my spot. However, I can't rank it first in good faith because of the fact that it's a little bit isolated on the grounds, and you'll probably be feeling a little FOMO as the matches move on.

2. 17th Tee (Par 3, 179 yards)

I know I said you should be by a green, but the cool thing here is that at 17, you're going to get a very good view of 16 green. If I were attending a U.S. Open at Bethpage, and I could only watch a single hole, I'd probably pick 16. It's a complete beast, with less than half the field typically finding a green in regulation, it has a couple wild octopus-tentacle bunkers by the green and on the heels of 15, it's a hilariously brutal two-hole stretch with the added difficulty of Ryder Cup pressure. Historically at Ryder Cups, 16 is a tremendous combination of different factors; 77 percent of all matches have reached the 16th since 2014, and also, 32 of them have ended here. And then, of course, you get to watch players tee off on 17, and a good pair of binoculars will make sure the action on the green is viewable too.

1. 17th Green (Par 3, 179 yards)

Jared C. Tilton

It's nearly perfect. A long, tough par 3 that will lead to serious blunders but also incredible sand shots. The drama will be out of this world—in the last five Cups, 32 of 140 matches have ended on 17, so you'll have a front-row seat to GLORY and DESPAIR. Sure, you'll miss the 40-45 percent of the matches that end earlier, which is kind of a bummer, but the trade-off is you’ve got an amazing chance to witness something iconic. Add in the viewable 16th green, and the open sight line to 18 tee and all the way down to the green (plus a far-off view of the first tee and fairway), and this is, quite simply, the best place to see something you'll never forget.

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