Huber Blog: So, you were wondering where 'Bethpage' came from?

TNT's Emmy Award-winning essayist Jim Huber is in Southampton, N.Y., for the 109th U.S. Open, and each day he will report on what he saw, heard and felt at Bethpage State Park's Black Course. This is his first edition.

By Jim Huber, Special to PGA.com

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- You're looking askance, I know you are. The word just sits there, begging, doesn't it? For the second time this decade, the prestigious U.S. Open has come to this ... place ... and you have just accepted it, like Hazeltine National and Frog's Armpit C.C., as part of golf's lingo.

What in the world is a Bethpage? Or maybe, who was Beth Page?

Seems a Welshman named Powell purchased all this property about 1661. He was a proper Quaker and thus found fertile ground on which to recreate Biblical history.
Jericho, N.Y., was just down the street back then, about 20 miles east of Jerusalem.

In ancient Israel, the town of Bethphage (which meant "house of figs" in Hebrew) was located directly between Jericho and Jerusalem. And so the begatting began here.

Over time, they lost the second "h" and what was once Jerusalem became Wantagh. Jericho, also a Quaker settlement back then, remains today.

I'd like to tell you Mr. Powell found golf right after God and established this shrine 400 years ago but the thought of sitting in his wagon in the parking lot here in the wee hours of Saturday morning waiting for a tee time apparently seemed a bit silly.

I'll get back to you on Hazeltine.