[PHOTO: Gary Kellner]
The New York metropolitan region has been blessed with an incredibly comfortable eight-week stretch of weather to close out the summer and welcome autumn. Temperatures have hovered between 21 degrees and 26 degrees, with low humidity and little rain, making it a golfer’s paradise. This includes the area in and round Long Island’s Bethpage State Park, where locals have enjoyed dry conditions seven out of the last eight weekends in their last chances to play the Black course before it hosts this week’s Ryder Cup.
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But if the weather forecast for the upcoming week is anywhere near accurate, that run of good luck is about to end this week, just in time, unfortunately, for the most anticipated golf event in recent memory.
The first sign of potential wet weather comes during Tuesday’s practice round, where the official Ryder Cup weather forecasts mentions a 20 to 30 percent chance of rain starting at 2 p.m. The rain could linger through the evening with about 0.5 centimetres of rain expected by Wednesday morning.
PGA Tour
The rain, however, looks as if it will continue to linger during the remaining practice rounds, the probability of rain between 40 and 70 percent on Wednesday and sticking to 70 percent on Thursday with thunderstorms also a possibility.
PGA Tour
OK, so practice rounds might get a bit soggy. What about the actually three days of competition? Well, the opening tee shot looks like it might be hit through rain drops with morning showers predicted including a possible isolated thunderstorm. Thankfully, things start getting better in the afternoon and improve for Saturday and Sunday where the probability of rain drops to 30 and 20 percent. And the total accumulated rain anticipated to fall for the week looks to be about an 3.8cm, a seemingly reasonable amount for the Bethpage grounds crew.
The good news about the forecast is that temperatures aren’t expected to climb higher than 25 degrees all week with lows around 15 degrees.
Sadly, fans who have attended big golf events at Bethpage Black have had to deal with rain in the past. Wet weather caused delays when the course hosted the 2002 US Open and forced the final round to roll into Monday during the 2009 US Open played on the municipal course.
