Robert Trent Jones Jr.: Listening to the Land

Breaking from the Dynasty

Robert Trent Jones Jr. could have simply followed his father's blueprint. The elder Jones built more than 500 courses across 40 states and 35 countries, and his heroic, large-scaled designs defined American golf through the postwar era. Instead, the younger Jones, born in 1939, enrolled at Yale to study history, spent a year at Stanford Law School, and eventually joined his father's firm in 1962 -- not to replicate it, but to find his own voice.

He found it in the soil. "Listen to the land," Jones says, and that phrase captures something real about how his courses work. Where his father favored bold forced carries and architectural drama, Jones Jr. developed what the industry calls the strategic school: multiple lines of play, recoverable mistakes, hazards positioned to challenge thinking rather than automatically punish execution. "You don't want to use exclamation points too much in a sentence," he has said, "and you don't want to use drama too much in a golf course."

Building a Body of Work

Jones founded his own firm, Robert Trent Jones II, in 1972 in Palo Alto, California, where it remains headquartered today. His first solo project had already been underway: the Princeville Makai Golf Course on Kauai, Hawaii, opening in 1971 -- an early signal that he intended to work differently, integrating courses into dramatic natural landscapes rather than imposing a design on them. The Princeville Prince Course followed in 1991 and has been consistently rated among the best resort courses in the United States.

In California, he shaped two courses at the Pebble Beach resort corridor. Poppy Hills Golf Course (1986), commissioned by the Northern California Golf Association, brought public golf to the Del Monte Forest. A year later, The Links at Spanish Bay opened as a co-design with Tom Watson and Sandy Tatum, a links-style layout on the site of a historic dune restoration project.

His firm went on to build CordeValle Golf Club in Gilroy, California (1999), a private resort course that now hosts PGA Tour events. In the mountains, The Club at Crested Butte (1984) plays to a slope rating of 155 -- one of the steepest in the country -- using the Elk Mountains as both backdrop and hazard. In Oregon, Eagle Point Golf Club opened in 1996 across the Rogue Valley, stretching past 7,000 yards from the tips. University Ridge Golf Course in Madison, Wisconsin became the official course of the University of Wisconsin in 1991.

Chambers Bay and the Championship Test

The most prominent course in Jones Jr.'s American portfolio is Chambers Bay, built in 2007 on a former gravel mine, paper mill, and wastewater site in University Place, Washington. Jones moved 1.4 million cubic yards of sand to create a links on Puget Sound, with fescue fairways, contoured greens designed as backboards, and wide routing that he described as offering "more options than the Chicago Futures Market." Chambers Bay won an Audubon Silver Sanctuary Award for its environmental restoration work and hosted the 2015 U.S. Open Championship and the 2010 U.S. Amateur.

The reclamation work at Chambers Bay reflects a broader commitment running through Jones's portfolio. His firm published a formal Green Proclamation committing to minimizing ecosystem disturbance, rehabilitating degraded land, and reducing water and chemical inputs on every project. Multiple courses carry Audubon International sanctuary certification, and his redesign of Poppy Hills reduced water consumption by 22 percent.

A Career Built on Every Continent

Jones has designed on every inhabited continent, with projects spanning Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Ireland, Russia, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, Fiji, and across the Americas. Bro Hof Slott Golf Club outside Stockholm (2007) ranks among the top courses in Europe. In 1994, he helped establish one of Russia's first modern private clubs at Moscow Country Club in Krasnogorsk. That reach -- more than 250 courses in over 40 countries -- sets his firm apart as one of the most geographically broad practices in the history of golf architecture.

Recognition and Legacy

In November 2024, the American Society of Golf Course Architects gave Jones Jr. its Donald Ross Award, the organization's highest honor. His father received the inaugural Donald Ross Award in 1976. The 48-year gap between father and son receiving the same award is its own kind of record. Jones also holds the California Golf Hall of Fame and served as president of the ASGCA. He wrote "Golf by Design," a book intended to help everyday players understand how course layouts shape strategy and challenge.

On Stymie, 83 courses across 29 states carry his name as architect, from Alaska to Florida, from Hawaii to Connecticut, spanning work that began in 1947 and continued through 2003. That record reflects a career not built on repeating a formula, but on what Jones calls the actual job: discovering what the land already knows.

View all courses by Robert Trent Jones Jr. on Stymie