Inside New York golfers war against bots to play famed course

Getting tee times at Bethpage State Park Golf Course is no easy endeavor, but Brooklyn resident Eric Bengyak discovered that he isn’t just fighting his fellow golfers in order to get a tee time at the famed public course, which will serve as the site of the Ryder Cup in September.Bengyak said that he discovered a larger issue of bots gaming the course’s reservation system and hindering local golfers’ ability to play at the publicly funded course.And it has kicked off a crusade by the Brooklynite to get Bethpage and foreUP to correct the issue.Bethpage is a public course operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and foreUP is the software vendor contracted by the state to handle the course’s online reservation system.“Ultimately, I’m just trying to play golf,” Bengyak told The Post in a phone conversation.

“That’s what I want.I see a system that’s broken, that’s not working, and I want it to be fixed.

I’m trying to highlight the issue to the people who have the ability to fix it, because it’s beneficial for all golfers in New York and for the taxpayers of New York.”The use of bots to scoop up large swaths of tee times has been a growing problem nationwide — with courses in San Diego and Los Angeles making headlines last year, and now reaching the “People’s Country Club.” Bengyak began exploring the issue after he noticed more and more golfers in the “No Laying up New York City Metro Group” he is a part of struggling to reserve times to play at Bethpage.He quickly noticed that when he would sign on to reserve a tee time seven days out — the allotted time New York State residents are provided to reserve spots through the foreUP system — that they would disappear within “five seconds.” And Freedom of Information Act data he requested from the state seemed to support the notion that bots were eating up a significant chunk of the tee times across Bethpage’s five courses — Red...