Interview With Robert Trent Jones, Jr Golf Course Architect

Below is an interview with Robert Trent Jones, Jr, the Golf Course Architect at . The following are a few traditional and non traditional golf centric questions that I love to ask influential people in the golf industry.

Can you provide our readers a brief biography?
Robert Trent "Bobby" Jones, Jr. is a golf course architect. He is the son of legendary golf course designer Robert Trent Jones and the brother of golf course designer Rees Jones.

When did you start golfing and who introduced you to the game?
According to the family legacy I was introduced to the game when I was in the cradle. My mother put a rattle in and my father put my hands around and said this is the grip.

To date, what is your proudest golf accomplishment?
Well, I have been very blessed to have had many adventures and many challenges throughout my life, and very few regrets if any, and basically the most difficult challenges I would count on one hand. Building my first golf course which got attention was the Princeville Prince Courses which are very magnificent courses in Kauai, Hawaii, which distinguished the beginning of my career from my father who I had apprenticed for 10 years before that. And so that was a big memorable moment, and it still is. I still go there and play golf, even though we remodeled both courses recently. The second probably most biggest challenge was building the Moscow Country Club in the Soviet Union. That took 20 years, it was a true mission. I was introduced to the idea again with my dad, but after 14 years of negotiations he dropped out, he didn't like the food, and was scared that they were listening to him too much, so he went home. By 1980 we picked it up and we got it open in 1994 and that was a major accomplishment. It tested not only my golf architectural skills, but my negotiating and diplomatic skills to take the so called English elite individualist export to a collective Communist society. So when we opened it and one of the members of the Red Army Band came to serenade us, I showed him the golf grip. It was a famous picture of a guy in his Red Army uniform on the practice range hitting balls. The caption is "The Reds are on the Greens The Cold War is Over" Probably the most beautiful accomplishment of recent times is the fact that the Chambers Bay Golf Course in Tacoma Washington will host the US Open Championship. For me that is the highest accolade because its given by the USJ, you can't buy that. This is the priesthood, the keepers of the flame of the game, saying this is a worthy place for a National Championship and one of the two of four majors, depending on who you count, that are truly open to the golf world to compete in. Now, thats the most recent of accomplishments, their going to play the US Open 2015 in June, but simultaneously the USJ also a second Open Championship at a different course which is Corde Valle in San Martin, California, South of San Jose for the Women's US Open, so we are gender neutral, you know, horses for horses and courses for different open championships, different courses. So those are some of the highlights that I'll always remember as being acknowledged. Now there are some places maybe that they're never going to host the Championship. Working in Japan early in my career, learning the aesthetics of harmony. Having the first World Cup played in Bangkok, Thailand on my course, on which there are now 5 courses which have held those tournaments. Those are highlights, but just sometimes a summer afternoon working with John Jonas at Century World was a great examination of my skills and he inspired me. Many times I am a co-author with the owner. Co-author meaning the guy, the passion about golf, has many ideas and I try to incorporate them into the design. It's really a collaborative process and Bruce Charles is my partner, and we all collaborate, even with the bull dozer operator, so its not just my memory, hopefully its a team memory.

What is your biggest golf pet peeve on or off the course?
Very funny you should ask that question. We design the course to be fully utilized by all players of different skills, right handed players, left handed players, women, men of all different age groups, different skill levels and one of the things about the game is that we have invented many different kinds of tees. My dad invented the long runway tee. We have broken the tees up. At Chambers Bay we have uneven tees to ask the best player of the world to choose a stance on the tee. What I am really uncomfortable is, when the superintendent or whoever is setting up the Cup, puts the ball marker, the tee markers on only half the tee or less. I want the tee markers on the full width of the tee. I want it, if its angled down a corridor of trees for example, which is most of the case, because I want the player to chose his own destiny, not have it chosen for them. Their thinking about turf conservation, I'm thinking about playing with all different players.

What is your favorite club in your bag and why?
Well, they say drive for show and putt for dough. You've got to drive the ball to get it into play and I am an old fox not a young lumber-back so my favorite club is probably 2 clubs. Sand wedge which I use around the greens and the putter.

What is your favorite golf destination?
The next place I get in the plane to go to. I used to do this actually. Once a year I would go down, in the old days to the San Francisco Airport and I would have my clubs, shoes, and maybe an overnight bag with some golf polo, and I would go and I would just look at the board which said where the planes were going. I treat it as a menu. Oh I could go to Monterey, oh I could Windfoot, New York, oh I could go to St. Lewis and play at Old Worston. You know, and I'd just look at it and see when the next plane was going, and I'd just go play golf there. And I did that for a while in the 80's just for fun with a couple of guys as a buddy trip. But my favorite destination for me probably is 2 places. One is Pine Valley New Jersey where I'm and honorary member cause I grew up there, know the course extremely well and love it and treat it well there. But for real, spiritual golf, St. Andrews always. I can walk that course in the dark in December and not fall in a bunker I know it so well, and so many things have happened on it, and so many wind conditions and changing weather patterns. Those are my favorites.

What course is on your bucket list that you have not played yet?
I don't plan to kick the bucket for a while, so maybe many courses. I just played Erin Hills for the first time last summer, which is a new course. I found that fascinating in itself. By the way I think Wisconsin golf is about to take off. It going to be the new destination like Alabama became the destination for golf tourism. You know when you think of the upper midwest its golf country, it turns green in June, or May and June. It turns color in September - October. It's a great place to enjoy parkland golf, lakes, trees, beautiful green courses, so I think all the courses in that part of the world, particularly Wisconsin, are being rediscovered. For me, bucket list, I feel pretty privileged, I've been able to play anywhere I want. So I would like to go back and play some courses.

If you could change one aspect, rule or thing about golf, what would it be and why?
That's a very good question. I think its very important the USGA is the keeper of the flame and keeps the traditions of the game. We're the one sport that does not have a commissioner of sorts. We have somebody we call a commissioner of the tour, but it's really a three legged stool. So you have the working Pro's who take care of the clubs, and the golf world, 25,000 of them and that's one element of the three legged stool. The other is the show business part of it, the PGA and the third is the USGA, and that means that we have like a kind of, like the United States Constitution, we have a balance. We don't have a commission of baseball and if we did we would probably have outrages salaries or prize moneys for the super stars of the game. The beauty of our game is it is a game you can play all of your life, and you can play with people of different ability, and we got to make sure we reach all the players that want to join our sport. I think that the rules that I might change is the out of bounds rule. Its really stroke and distance in a competition, slows the play down and its a huge penalty for a slightly missed shot in some cases.

Dream foursome (living)?
Well the people that I have enjoyed playing golf with and just having a great time with are people who are competitive players, and played by the rules, and are fun to play with, and believe in the interior character of the game. I would say Tom Watson is one of those people, probably someone you don't know named Butch Berry whose a great friend of mine, played for Cornell, one of the eastern Collegiate and is now a lawyer in San Francisco and I would add two more people. One of them would be Mary Bee Porter King from Kauai Hawaii, who is a great woman professional and now one of the elder stateswomen of the game, and finally I would have Dan Rooney who founded the Patriot Course in, near Tulsa in Owasso, Oklahoma which we designed the course as the founder of the Wounded Warrior Situation to help, its called the Folds of Honor. So those are my people that I think play the game by the rules and play life by the rules as well

Dream foursome (living or dead)?
Well, I'm a poet so I try to resurrect them anyway, and I've done some poems on St. Andrews in which I fantasize that I'm playing with old and young Tom Morris, in a Scottish brogue. I'd like to play with Tommy Armour who was my teacher. And those are the people I would like to play with. I've played with many Presidents so I've had the privilege to play with them. So I think golf is a universal game. I'd like to play with my son and get him to hit the ball on the fairway. It's distance and control Trent not just distance. Those would be some of the people.

18 Rapid Fire, Off The Cuff Questions

1) Hitting Long Drive OR Sinking Long Putt?
Sinking a long putt.

2) Having Round of Life OR Hole in One?
Round of my life.

3) Golfing at the crack of dawn OR twilight?
Twilight.

4) Hit a power fade OR power draw?
Straight

5) Beverage cart OR halfway house?
Halfway house.

6) Bathroom OR bushes?
Always bushes.

7) Hot dog OR wrap?
Oh a wrap. oh no..I would rather have a hot dog..

8) Around the green, being in sand OR thick rough?
Bunker

9) Walking OR riding?
Walking when I was younger, riding now, but you do as much walking now if you have to stay in the cart bag so it doesn't make any difference.

10) Do you carry traditional 3 iron OR hybrid?
Hybrid.

11) Do you prefer long par 3 OR long par 5?
That's a hard one. I think I like them both. I think because I don't hit the ball as far, there are no short par 5's. However a long par 3 could be a 3 1/2 hole too so I'd say probably par 5.

12) Pants OR Shorts?
Pants

13) Palmer OR Nicklaus?
Palmer for his sociability, Nicolas for his blunt honesty. I've played with Jack Nicolas since we were 15 years old in the National Jr's when he represented Ohio and I represented New Jersey in Columbus Georgia

14) Beatles OR Elvis?
Without question, I am a Beatles man.

15) Play for fun OR play for money?
I play for fun. I work for money.

16) Bump and run OR flop shot?
Bump and run.

17) Lay up OR gamble?
Depends on the situation and the match. If I want to lead, I will lay up, if I have to make it up, I'll gamble.

18) 18 holes OR 36?
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