During my week on the U.S. Women’s Open, I acquired the possibility to play with well-known course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. Here’s what it was like.
Getty Images / Zephyr Melton
SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Women’s Open introduced me to the West Coast, however when an invitation to play San Francisco Golf Club got here throughout my desk, I determined to make an early-morning detour 100 miles north. SFGC invitations don’t come round usually. When you get the possibility, you’re taking it.
But it wasn’t simply the attract of enjoying this Golden Age gem that dragged me away from Pebble Beach throughout a serious week, it was additionally my host — Robert Trent Jones Jr.
The Jones household identify is certainly one of royalty within the golf course design world. Jones’ father, Robert Trent Jones Sr., was a mid-century architect that labored on initiatives starting from Spyglass to Congressional; his brother, Rees, adopted in his father’s footsteps and have become often known as “The Open Doctor” for his work with the USGA making ready U.S. Open programs. Jones Jr. additionally acquired into the household enterprise. He’s designed programs everywhere in the world, with his most well-known work, Chambers Bay, internet hosting a U.S. Open in 2015.
After Jones emerges from his sedan on this chilly San Francisco summer time day, he grabs his cane and waddles to the trunk. He shuffles by 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 examine them. To my untrained eye, it appears like a golf course. To Jones, it’s way more. Golf programs aren’t simply well-manicured grass and rugged hazards. For him, golf programs are artwork.
Jones, 83, isn’t as spry as he as soon as was, so he opts to take a golf cart for our tour. There aren’t any cart paths at SFGC, so he drives as near the tee field as he can get.
“I’m not playing any game today,” Jones says. ” I’m simply going to hit some photographs.”
As we make our approach down the first fairway, Jones instantly jumps into an evidence of the bunkering on this A.W. Tillinghast traditional. He tells me the technical names for each function, and what objective they serve. After a couple of 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 structure information is severely missing, so I was completely satisfied to soak it all up. When I inform him this, the floodgates actually open. For the subsequent a number of hours, I get a crash course in all issues course design.
Jones tells me about reefs and waves and the way they affect course design. He explains why Seth Raynor programs look completely different than Tillinghast ones. He bemoans the fashionable pattern of tree removing and yearns for extra corridors for golfers to play by.
“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 is perhaps one of many highest-rated programs within the U.S., however that doesn’t imply Jones thinks it’s excellent — removed from it, in actual fact. The down-and-back routing of lots of the again 9 holes — which he likens to sausage hyperlinks on a platter — attracts his criticism, and the cadence of par on the closing stretch wants some reimagining.
When we attain the quick par-3 twelfth gap, our caddie calls it a “great little hole.” Jones rapidly corrects him.
“It’s a good hole,” he says. “Not a great one.”
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The bunkers are too large for the inexperienced measurement, he explains. If you’re within the incorrect spot within the sand, you’ve got little probability of conserving your ball on the inexperienced — even for the most effective gamers. This is the final time our caddie feedback heading in the right direction design for the day.
Jones is a member of the R&A, Pine Valley and SFGC, however he explains that his membership on the latter was conditional. He’s not allowed to do any work on the course or make any solutions on how it ought to be modified.
“I have plenty of opinions,” he says. “I just don’t tell anyone out here about them.”
Late within the spherical, I ask him when he knew he needed to be a golf course architect. He appears at me and laughs.
“Every golfer wants to be a golf course architect,” he says.
As we end our spherical, Jones insists I be a part of him within the clubhouse for lunch. I clarify that I have to get again to Pebble Beach as quickly as doable, however he won’t let me go away with out exhibiting me all of the historical past the membership has to supply.
Once we’re seated, he passes me a self-published assortment of poetry he’s written through the years. His eyes beam with delight as I learn just a few passages. He’s written an op-ed in regards to the state of golf that he’s contemplating submitting for publication. He asks for my suggestions.
“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 factor Jones is aware of (aside from golf programs), it’s learn how to converse up.
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