During my week at the U.S. Women’s Open, I got the chance to play with famous course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. Here’s what it was like.
Getty Images / Zephyr Melton
SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Women’s Open brought me to the West Coast, but when an invite to play San Francisco Golf Club came across my desk, I decided to make a quick detour 100 miles north. SFGC invites don’t come around often, so when you get the chance, you take it.
But it wasn’t just the allure of playing SFGC that dragged me away from Pebble Beach during a major week, it was also who’d be hosting me: Robert Trent Jones Jr.
The Jones family name is one of royalty in the golf course design world. Jones’ father, Robert Trent Jones Sr., was a mid-century architect that worked on projects ranging from Spyglass to Congressional; his brother, Rees, followed in his father’s footsteps and became known as “The Open Doctor” for his work with the USGA preparing U.S. Open courses. Jones Jr. also got into the family business. He’s designed courses all over the world, with his most famous work, Chambers Bay, hosting a U.S. Open in 2015.
After Jones emerges from his sedan on this chilly San Francisco summer day, he grabs his cane and waddles to the trunk. He shuffles through an array of junk and pulls his golf bag from the mess.
“Did you watch the Senior Open last week?” he asks. “That course [SentryWorld] is one of mine.”
He then pulls out the blueprints from SentryWorld and implores me to inspect them. To my untrained eye, it looks like a golf course. To Jones, it’s much more. Golf courses aren’t just well-manicured grass and rugged hazards. For him, golf courses are art.
Jones, 83, isn’t as spry as he once was, so he opts to take a golf cart for our excursion. There aren’t any cart paths at SFGC, so he drives as close to the tee box as he can get.
“I’m not playing any game today,” Jones says. ” I’m just going to hit some shots.”
As we make our way down the 1st fairway, Jones immediately jumps into an explanation of the bunkering on this A.W. Tillinghast classic. He tells me the technical names for every feature, and what purpose they serve. After a few minutes, he stops himself.
“Just tell me if you’re not interested in this stuff,” he says. “I could talk about it all day.”
My architecture knowledge is severely lacking, so I was happy to soak it all up. When I tell him this, the floodgates really open. For the next several hours, I get a crash course in all things course design.
Jones tells me about reefs and waves and how they influence course design. He explains why Seth Raynor courses look different than Tillinghast ones. He bemoans the modern trend of tree removal and yearns for more corridors for golfers to play through.
“All these members want to be able to see their entire course from the patio when they’re having drinks,” Jones says. “But last time I checked, you don’t play golf from the patio.”
SFGC might be one of the highest-rated courses in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean Jones thinks it’s perfect — far from it, in fact. The down-and-back routing of many of the back nine holes — which he likens to sausage links on a platter — draws his criticism, and the cadence of par on the closing stretch needs some reimagining.
When we reach the short par-3 12th hole, our caddie calls it a “great little hole.” Jones quickly corrects him.
“It’s a good hole,” he says. “Not a great one.”
Robert Trent Jones Jr. is here to defend his body of work (and his family’s legacy)
The bunkers are too big for the green size, he explains. If you are in the wrong spot in the sand, you have little chance of keeping your ball on the green — even for the best players. This is the last time our caddie comments on course design for the day.
Jones is a member of the R&A, Pine Valley and SFGC, but he explains that his membership at the latter was conditional. He’s not allowed to do any work on the course or make any suggestions on how it should be changed.
“I have plenty of opinions,” he says. “I just don’t tell anyone out here about them.”
Late in the round, I ask him when he knew he wanted to be a golf course architect. He looks at me and laughs.
“Every golfer wants to be a golf course architect,” he says.
As we finish our round, Jones insists I join him in the clubhouse for lunch. I explain that I need to get back to Pebble Beach as soon as possible, but he will not let me leave without showing me all the history the club has to offer.
Once we’re seated, he passes me a self-published collection of poetry he’s written over the years. His eyes beam with pride as I read a few passages. He’s written an op-ed about the state of golf that he’s considering submitting for publication. He asks for my feedback.
“What’s your goal with this?” I ask.
“I just want to use my voice to speak up,” he says. “And maybe it will inspire others to do the same.”
If there’s one thing Jones knows (other than golf courses), it’s how to speak up.
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