One of the largest golf courses in the United States was taken over by… robots?
Friday morning the New York State Inspector General’s Office has released a months-long report on the state of the tee time system at Bethpage State Park, investigating allegations of software bots and tee time sellers that have plagued the municipal golf haven (and recent host of the Ryder Cup) for years. The investigation, which started after a separate investigation into the starting time system by golf writer Kevin Van Valkenburg, aimed at understanding why booking irregularities had become an accepted part of the state park’s online reservation system among golfers at each of the park’s five courses. In particular, the study sought to answer whether tee time “bots” – or software programs aimed at getting times faster than any human user – were responsible for the irregularities, as Van Valkenburg’s research did. No imposing podcast first claimed.
Nine months after Van Valkenburg’s initial report, the IG’s office report found that bots posed a “serious threat” to the integrity of the Bethpage Tee Time system, although the inspector general could not find any concrete evidence of bot use.
The IG’s office collected a host of unusual data in the report, including a range of tee time data for the period between April and August 2024. According to the report, more than half of all tee times have been booked at Bethpage’s five courses (57,587 of 105,000, or 55 percent), and nearly sixty percent of those booked on the legendary Black Course (9,462 out of 16,365, or 57 percent), resulted in cancellations during those five months. Even though that data point made it impossible to determine the cause, the unusually high number indicated irregularities in some part of the starting time system.
The report found no evidence of tee time ‘resellers’, or of people illegally booking times and reselling them at a higher price, but the unusually high number of cancellations indicated there were loopholes in the law that could be exploited – and perhaps were being exploited – by bad actors.
“This data could indicate that some users are exploiting a loophole to circumvent Bethpage’s ban on tee time transfers,” the report said. “For example, if a golfer reserves a tee time that they wish to transfer to another golfer despite this ban, the first golfer can cancel their reservation outside the hour (e.g. at 3:00 a.m.) so that the second golfer can attempt to claim it when the reservation is released back into the system.”
Ultimately, the IG’s office ruled that tee time bots posed a “serious threat to the integrity of the booking systems” and recommended a series of changes aimed at ensuring fair access for all who book tee times with Bethpage by discouraging (or removing entirely) software programs from the system. One specific option is called an identification verification system ID.me which is often used by other branches of New York State government, would help authenticate any tee time booked through the system before it was finalized.
These changes may sound familiar to New York golfers: They were many of the same changes implemented by the New York State Parks Department in recent months. Earlier this year, the department instituted stricter rules regarding cancellations and the prepayment of a “booking fee” in an effort to discourage bad actors. The department subsequently doubled down on this approach in the days following the Ryder Cup, announcing the creation of a two-factor authentication system that would ensure all tee time bookings were made by humans.
The drama surrounding Bethpage Parks’ tee time system has increased in 2025 as Bethpage Black has welcomed the attention of the golf world in a historically busy playing season surrounding the Ryder Cup. As the “People’s Country Club” prepared for its moment in the spotlight, wait times for parking lot tee times on the legendary Black Course stretched to two days in some cases.
Ultimately, the inspector general’s office said this was the spirit of this golfers who required serious actions to defend against bots.
“If left unchecked, such bot use risks undermining public trust, limiting fair access to tee times and creating the perception that the system favors those who can exploit technology over those who follow normal booking procedures,” the report said. “For these reasons, taking safeguards against bot activity is essential to maintaining both the integrity of the system and fair access for all players.”
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