In the usual story, the golf course model has moved from punishment to players friendly. Forget it forced bears and narrow, trees-architects now favor the width and options of the terrestrial game. The result, according to the standard narrative, is less disappointed and more fun.
Rees Jones Take a slightly different look.
“Now everyone is using these closed sandy roads,” Jones said. “Most of the successful architects are now using that way to cornize holes. Although the right roads are wider and the green may not be so bunked, I think it’s more of a criminal style in which they are contrary to strategic style.”
The marked architect was talking in a Last Episode of Destination Golf PodcastIn a broad conversation covering the long field of his career. Now 83, Jones is the product of the Golf Kingdom. His father, Robert Trent Jones Sr. He was a giant of the mid-20th century course model, known as an open doctor for his surgical procedures in a list of US open countries. But he was also famous for his projects – so much around the globe, in fact, that he liked that “the sun is never set in a Robert Trent Jones Sr.”
Decades later, Rees inherited his father’s open doctor Mantle (among other commissions, he enrolled to help Torrey Pines and Bethpage Black for national championships) while – also as his father – building a thick portfolio of original work. Recently, Jones and his team have been busy once again in Bethpage, serving as a 2025 Ryder Cup consultants, which will be held in September in Long Island Muni.
Bethpage was built in the 1930s, a tillinghast design that remains a bear, looking for long -term trucks, needle shots and challenging access to bunkers protected greens. Criminal penalties, well, but its demands are different from today’s courses, which, Jones says, imposed fierce protection of a different kind.
Makes makes today’s models so difficult?
“The daily player hates sand,” Jones said. There are more than that, and, of course, and Jones continued to elaborate. To hear more of him about the evolution of the course design – and a series of other themes – you can hear the whole episode here.
