Meet New York’s Secret ‘Ghost’ Ski Resort Hiding Under One Of The World’s Most Famous Golf Courses

Most New Yorkers know Long Island’s Bethpage State Park for one thing: golf . The Black Course is legendary enough that people sleep in their cars just to snag a tee time and it’s hosted U.S. Opens, PGA Championships, and even Ryder Cups (like last year’s). It’s intimidating, it’s iconic, and it’s very much *not* what you’d associate with ski goggles and rope tows. But long before Bethpage became one of the most famous golf destinations in the country, it pulled off a very different winter trick: it turned into Long Island’s very own ski hill . From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, Bethpage State Park quietly doubled as a winter playground, complete with rope tows, snowy slopes, and bundled-up locals learning how to ski just miles from the South Shore . Today, most visitors walk straight past the former runs without realizing they’re standing on the ghost of a forgotten ski resort . The People’s Country Club, winter edition ----------------------------------------- Bethpage’s ski era began around 1948, when the park leaned into winter recreation during snowier decades on Long Island. The location wasn’t exactly the Alps, let’s be clear, but it worked for it was. Skiers headed to what is now the 18th hole of the Green Course , where a single rope tow hauled people up a roughly 400-foot slope with about 100 feet of vertical drop . It was beginner-friendly, proudly low-tech, and deeply charming. Skiers clutched a moving rope to get uphill, often shredding gloves in the process. A small heated shelter offered warmth and refreshments and admission reportedly cost just 25 cents in the late 1940s, eventually rising to around 75 cents before the operation shut down. At night, the slope was even lit for evening skiing — a surreal detail when you picture today’s perfectly manicured fairways. Why Long Island skiing actually made sense ------------------------------------------ As strange as it sounds now, Bethpage wasn’t alone. Mid-century Long Island had several small ski areas thanks to its rolling glacial moraine hills. Bald Hill in Farmingville once hosted the biggest slopes in the region and Hi-Point in Huntington taught generations of locals to ski right off Jericho Turnpike. Bethpage fit right into that moment — a time when winters were colder, snow stuck around longer, and small community ski hills popped up anywhere a decent incline existed. Why it disappeared ------------------ Bethpage’s fatal flaw was simple: no snowmaking . Unlike upstate resorts that could blast artificial snow for months, Bethpage relied entirely on natural snowfall . By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Long Island winters were becoming more unpredictable. Maintenance costs climbed and golf increasingly took priority, with the final rope tow reportedly running around 1971. There were even brief experiments with a handful of snow guns in the early ’70s, but it wasn’t enough to save the operation. What’s left today ----------------- Almost all of the ski infrastructure is gone, but traces remain if you know where to look . The most notable survivor is the small brick motor house near the Green Course — the building that once powered the rope tow. The slope itself still carries the unmistakable shape of a former ski run , even though it’s now seamlessly folded into the golf landscape. In winter, the hills fill a new role and locals can be seen sledding, cross-country skiers gliding through the park, and dog walkers following paths carved into terrain that once echoed with clacking skis. Bethpage didn’t stop being a winter destination — it just sorta...evolved. There’s something uniquely New York about it: a forgotten ski hill hiding in plain sight, replaced not by abandonment, but by reinvention. Today, one of the most famous golf courses in the world sits atop a layer of snowy Long Island lore — and most people have no idea it was ever there at all. Source: https://secretnyc.co/bethpage-state-park-ny-abandoned-ski-hill-turned-golf-course/