When a Flynn or a Doak or a Coore designs thirty to forty courses throughout their entire career, the opportunity exists to play a majority of them which in turn leaves the golfer with a sense of that person's body of work. The same is much harder to say when a man's name is tied to over 500 courses such as Trent Jones's.
Not having seen Peachtree, Bellerive, or his courses in Spain, I am a poor one to put his work in perspective but in typical GolfClubAtlas.com fashion, I'll forge ahead anyway
. Of his courses I have seen, The Dunes stands out as being the most strategic, much more so than Spyglass or Ballybunion New for instance or even the charming Greenville Country Club. It makes sense that Stanley Thompson's influence on his work was the greatest early on. Perhaps the Toronto Terror deserves a tip of the hat here as there is a joy found in playing The Dunes that seems absent in some of Jones's later work.
My favorite Trent Jones story is told by a friend in Pinehurst. In 1985 when the U.S. Women's Open was played on Baltusrol Upper, Trent Jones came into the souvenir tent wearing his customary jacket and tie and asked my friend for some logo shirts for his grandchildren. My friend responded that they only had T-shirts in this tent and Jones asked 'what's that?' to which my friend unfolded one. Jones exclaimed, 'The shirt has no collar - who would possibly wear such a thing?!' and walked away.
Of course, that is before it was socially acceptable to dress like a slob all the time in America
and the story highlights that Jones was indeed the last of a generation. I was at a large USGA gathering at Hope Valley Country Club in Durham where Jones was the featured speaker in 1986. His range of stories - from the people he had met, to construction techniques that saved his customers money, to some of his favorite holes and courses - left no doubt as to his love for his profession and for his appreciation for the wonderfully full life that he enjoyed.
Though The Dunes is an easy U.S. Top 100 in my book, the playing experience can be choppy. I played it on two different trips this year and both times, we had to wait on the second tee
. The fact that the course can be poorly run is a shame as it is a special place and people would appreciate Jones's work all the more if the playing experience was smoother. The greens and next tees are closely situated making it an easy walking course but unlike in 1949, golf carts now rule the landscape - along with the noise that they bring.
What a shame but again, that doesn't take anything away from what I consider to be Jones's heroic/strategic design masterpiece. Yes, Harbour Town had a great influence on modern designers but let's not forget The Dunes too as a standout post WWII design.
Cheers,