Robert Trent Jones Sr.

Born in England in 1906, Robert Trent Jones emigrated with his family to the United States in 1911 and grew up in East Rochester, New York. A strong amateur player, he understood that a heart condition would limit a competitive career and deliberately constructed a Cornell education combining landscape, civil engineering, agronomy, drainage and horticulture. He worked with Stanley Thompson from 1930 before establishing an independent practice during the Depression. After the war, economic growth, automobile travel and television created an enormous market that he occupied more successfully than any contemporary. His work is characterised by longs parcours de championnat; grands greens, bunkers puissants et plans d’eau assumés; adaptation aux événements télévisés; première grande marque mondiale d’architecture. Principal associations include Peachtree; Spyglass Hill; Hazeltine National; Bellerive; Golden Horseshoe Gold; Valderrama; Mauna Kea; Alabama Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Attribution nevertheless requires care: courses of this period were frequently products of firms, site associates and successive alteration. His significance lies as much in routing decisions as in detailed greens, bunkers, drainage and maintenance conditions. Influence also travelled through people he trained, regions he helped open to golf and professional methods he transmitted. In the broader history of architecture, his career helps explain the transition from a largely craft-based occupation to an organised international industry connected with property, tourism and public golf. The finest courses should not be judged only in their present condition, because many have been lengthened, renovated or altered by vegetation. Serious interpretation compares original plans, photographs, club archives and later work.