Robert Trent Jones Jr.: 83 American Courses, One Design Philosophy

Robert Trent Jones Jr. grew up inside golf course architecture. His father, Robert Trent Jones Sr., was one of the defining figures of mid-20th century course design, and young Bobby learned the game from Tommy Armour at Winged Foot before studying history and geology at Yale. He joined the family firm in the early 1960s, working alongside his father on Spyglass Hill in Pebble Beach, then left in 1972 to found his own practice, Robert Trent Jones II, based in Palo Alto, California.

That independence became the foundation for a career that produced more than 250 courses across 40 countries on six continents. On Stymie, 83 of those courses span 29 American states, from Alaska to Florida, representing more than five decades of work on domestic soil.

A Philosophy Built Around the Land

What separates Jones Jr. from his father and his brother Rees Jones is a different kind of ambition. Robert Trent Jones Sr. built courses designed to punish the world's best players. Jones Jr. built courses meant to read like stories. His mantra -- "listen to the land" -- shaped everything from site selection to routing. He described his approach this way: "The very best courses are those where nature has provided the canvas and my job is to discover her secrets and reveal them."

He studied geology at Yale, and it shows. His courses flow with existing topography rather than reshaping it, preserving native vegetation, integrating water features organically, and letting the terrain determine the routing. He was among the first major American architects to build environmental sensitivity into his practice as a core principle, not an afterthought.

Tournament Stages

The most prominent example of that approach is Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington -- a municipal links-style course built over a former sand and gravel mine on Puget Sound. It hosted the 2015 U.S. Open, making it one of the only American municipal courses ever to hold a major championship. The course drew both praise for its dramatic terrain and debate over its unconventional greens.

Equally significant is Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, designed for the Northern California Golf Association in 1986. It served as one of three rotation courses for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for more than two decades and remains a public-access layout in one of the most competitive golf markets in the country.

Hawaii and the Resort Portfolio

Some of Jones Jr.'s most acclaimed work came out of Hawaii. His first major solo project was Princeville Makai Golf Club on the north shore of Kauai, begun in 1971 and redesigned in 2009. Alongside it, the Prince Course at Princeville has repeatedly ranked among the best layouts in Hawaii and draws golfers from around the world to its cliff-edge terrain above the Pacific.

His Hawaii work exemplifies the environmental attentiveness that defines his style. Rather than imposing a design onto volcanic terrain, his courses on the islands treat elevation changes, ocean views, and native vegetation as design elements rather than engineering challenges.

83 Courses Across 29 States

The breadth of his American work is substantial. Jones Jr.'s courses on Stymie stretch from Eagleglen Golf Course in Alaska, built in 1972 on Elmendorf Air Force Base, to layouts across the South, the Midwest, and the Mountain West. His mountain work includes Jackson Hole Golf and Tennis Club in Wyoming, dating to 1961, and the Club at Crested Butte in Colorado, a high-altitude layout with a slope rating of 155 from the tips. His earliest credited domestic work, Sun Valley Resort Golf Course in Idaho, dates to 1947 -- from his years working in his father's firm.

In California alone, he left more than a dozen courses, including CordeValle Golf Club in Gilroy, a private resort course built in 1999 that has hosted PGA Tour events. It stretches to 7,316 yards through the rolling Santa Clara Valley and remains one of his most praised California designs.

Author, Environmentalist, Advocate

Jones Jr.'s contribution to golf architecture extends beyond the courses themselves. He authored "Golf by Design," a book intended to help players understand how to read a course layout. He served as president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, sat on the California State Park and Recreation Commission, and earned a place in the California Golf Hall of Fame. He was an early voice for sustainable golf course management decades before the industry made it standard practice.

Now in his mid-80s, Jones Jr. continues to work. The Corica Park North Course in Alameda, California, completed in 2025, stands as his most recent major public project -- a municipal redesign built with environmental stewardship at the center of the brief, consistent with everything he has argued for since 1972.

Across 83 courses and 29 American states, spanning work from Idaho mountain resorts to Washington State links to the cliffs of Kauai, the record holds up: a portfolio shaped by the conviction that the best golf courses reveal what was always there.

View all courses by Robert Trent Jones Jr. on Stymie