Designer Trent Jones Sr. Dies

He designed 310 golf courses in a career that spanned seven decades, but Robert Trent Jones Sr. really didn’t have a favorite.

“He always said his courses were like his children, he didn’t have a favorite,” said Rees Jones, one of Jones’ architect sons.

The death of Jones, the doyen of U.S. golf architects, was announced Thursday. He died Wednesday at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 93.

One of the most prolific golf course architects in history, Jones also redesigned an additional 150 courses, and his work includes courses that have been the venues of 79 national championships since 1951--including 20 U.S. Opens and 12 PGA Championships.

He designed such courses as Peachtree in Atlanta while collaborating with the legendary Bobby Jones, Spyglass Hill on the Monterey Peninsula and both Sotogrande and Valderrama on the coast of Spain.

It was Jones who toughened up Oakland Hills for the 1951 U.S. Open, where only two rounds under par were recorded the entire tournament. Ben Hogan won with a final-round 67 and a seven-over total of 287.

Afterward, Hogan made his now-famous remark: “I am glad I was able to bring this course, this monster, to its knees.”

Jones once characterized golf as a form of attack and defense.

“It offers a golfer his personal challenge of combat,” Jones said. “He attacks the course and par. The architect creates fair pitfalls to defend its easy conquest. The architect calls on his ingenuity to create a hole that will reward only by achievement.”

Jones’ achievements are legion and legendary. He helped the USGA install a practice putting green for President Eisenhower on the White House lawn--later removed by President Nixon, then rebuilt by Jones’ son, Robert Trent Jones Jr., for President Clinton.

Jones also created golf facilities for the Rockefellers, the Aga Khan in Sardinia and King Hassan II of Morocco in Rabat.

The first architect to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Jones was born in Ince, England, in 1906. He came to the U.S. at age 6 with his Welsh immigrant parents and settled in Rochester, N.Y. Jones learned the game as a caddie at Rochester Country Club.

Jones was working on Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester when he met the famous architect Donald Ross in 1926. That meeting helped Jones decide on his career.

“I think he’ll be remembered for making golf course architecture a profession,” Rees Jones said. “It was really pretty much a sideline before Dad turned it into a profession.”

Jones Jr. said his father was criticized at first because the players found Spyglass Hill too difficult.

“He was way ahead of his time,” he said. “Spyglass is revered now because it’s not too long any more.

“He had a wonderful run.”

One of Jones’ upgrades was Baltusrol, in Springfield, N.J., where he turned a 120-yard par three into a 192-yard par three with more water and a green on the edge of a rocky shore. Club members claimed Jones made the hole too difficult, so Jones suggested a test with club pro Johnny Farrell and two members. Farrell and the members put their tee shots on the green, but Jones holed his tee shot for an ace.

Said Jones: “Gentlemen, the hole is fair, eminently fair.”

A memorial service for Jones will be held Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale. It would have been his 94th birthday.