RTJ revival

[T_MacWood]

Big elevated rolling greens, long tees, abundance of water hazards, large irregular shaped ameba bunkers, consistant bunkering protecting driving zone and green, etc. - when and will the design style of the 50's and 60's, Robert Trent Jones and Dick Wilson return? What are its advantages over the retro 20's style of today?

Is there anyone who is doing this style today?

[Mike_Sweeney]

Tom,

We obviously favor the classics here, but that RTJ style has been modified and is being built by Bobby, Rees and Roger Rulewich. Mark Chalfant had this thread on modern Long Island courses the other day:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=22472;start=msg409466#msg409466

Think about the dirversity that has been built the last 15 years on Long Island:

Atlantic - Rees started it all, and while the bunkering has changed, there is still some Jones greens out there, and this is not a bad thing with the way that course and greens are maintained. National-like contours at Atlantic would be imp[ossible to putt.

The Bridge - Rees was much closer to his father's style here.

South Fork CC - new 9 by Gill Hanse, I have not see it, but Mark says that most here would like it.

East Hampton - if I remember correctly a Fazio routing and C&C bunkering on a mixture of trees and farmland, a true mixture of styles and looks

Sebonnack - not sure I can classify this one yet, but it does sound like a true collaboration between Doak and Nicklaus. Do any Nicklaus greens resemble RTJ?

Friars Head - maybe the only modern course built out there that is 100% GCA.com modern classic

Long Island National - Bobby Jones - very shaped modern with some RTJ-like greens, but better and wilder than his father.

Laurel Links - Kelly Moran's modern day housing community course that plays BIG with some Pinehurst like greens.

Links @ Shirley - (I forget the architect) a combination of Florida and Noth Carolina style course set in the Pines.

Cherry Creek - (architect was a land planner I believe), simple course, absolutely some RTJ greens and strategy out there.

Tall Grass - Gil Hanse's moved a ton of dirt to create a classic on a flat treeless sod farm.

I think this concept of Golden Age revival is a pile of GCA crapola. What we have today is more diversity than ever before! However, this website (and its many raters) favors the classic style over the others so we get tricked into thinking that Golden Age is dominating.

Doak and C&C may have brought the classics back, but RTJ is very much alive!

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Slightly non-responsive but I think Forrest Richardson's award winning work at RTJ's Wigwam Gold will spark a cottage industry of  architects doing RTJ restorations. I'd like to see Tamiment in the Poconos get the full treatment. It's on my list of courses to play this summer.

[T_MacWood]

Mike
Interesting analysis - how would you characterise Rees Jones' remodeling of Bethpage-Black?

Steve
I don't think your answer is non-responsive. I would think a RTJ revival would include a restoration movement.

[mark chalfant]

Tom  Im looking forward to seeing Forrests work at Wigwam.
Wilmington, Del.  CC   is very interesting design to study, in part because of a Wagner / hanse restoration there.   It has 18 by Wilson and 18 by  RTJ

[Mike_Sweeney]

Mike
Interesting analysis - how would you characterise Rees Jones' remodeling of Bethpage-Black?

Based on the owners desire (NY State and USGA), I think it was very well done. They asked for and he gave them a US Open course. I recognize that you would prefer a more sympathetic restoration, but the owners did not want that, and of the architects that renovate pro style courses (Rees, Fazio, Nicklaus, Dye....), I believe Rees was probably the most sympathetic.

Doak, C&C, Hanse .... are still unproven for renovations of pro style course. That may be due to politics.

In the instance of a course like Engineers, I probably agree with most of what you have written over the years, unfortunately the members disagree.

[redanman]

I think the work Rees did was very good, too.  All they need to do is widen the mowing areas.

This whole 18th hole thing is a bit much though.  Sadly, many of the oldest course weren't built with the idea of a ball-busting finish being either necessary or desirable.  The current bunker fields on BPB #18 is my only possible complaint of Ree's fingerprints there.

[T_MacWood]

Mike
My question was related to your comment about Rees, RTJ II and Rulewich carrying on a modified version of RTJ. Do you see RTJ in Rees redesign of Bethpage-Black?

PS: I look at Engineers and Bethpage-Black the same way - IMO there was absolutley no need to rework either landmark design. Redesign advertised as restoration is another pet peeve of mine.

[TEPaul]

If there ever is a dedicated revival of RTJ's style I doubt it would happen for a number of decades. I'd bet it will never happen.

[Bill_McBride]

It was fun playing Rio Rico, an original, unremodeled RTJ south of Tucson.  I had forgotten how long those tees can be!  Solid holes but a steady diet of bunker left bunker right and bunkers both sides of every green.  Not a tremendous amount of strategy but solid holes.  One very good short par 4 dogleg left straight uphill for the second shot.  What I remember most was how cold it was, maybe 45 degrees on a sunny January day!

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:  I disagree that there is such a thing as a "pro-style" course that needs a different method of design applied to it.  Sure, there are some projects where you have to think more about the pros to the exclusion of other users, and I've not done one of those yet, because in most cases the client or the USGA tells the architect what they want done, instead of listening to them.  But I don't think there is any special knowledge required to work on a US Open course.  

Personally I think Tom Fazio's work is very reminiscent of Mr. Jones' -- big bold and clean -- just with a different look to the details.

[Mike_Sweeney]

Personally I think Tom Fazio's work is very reminiscent of Mr. Jones' -- big bold and clean -- just with a different look to the details.

Did RTJ build any/many cartball style courses? I can't think of any that can't be walked.

If he had built cartball with great visuals would he have more appreciation? Maybe not at GCA.com but elsewhere?

[Bill_McBride]

Mike, the majority of RTJ's courses were built pre-100% cartball, don't you think?

[Mike_Sweeney]

Bill,

Here is the last one he gets credited for in 1998 in Westchester, so he had a few that squeezed in:

http://www.anglebrookgc.com/home.html

I have not played it, but hope to this year. I assume Rulewich did most of the work, but it is still an RTJ of record.

[Sean Leary]

Is RTJ's style the the best "test" for tour players? Is this style that the better ballstrikers would want on a tournament course?

[Bill_McBride]

Mike, since RTJ Sr died in 2000 at age 94, I'm going to assume along with you that Rulewich did most of the work!  I wonder how long he was actually active....

Here's a good if brief bio: http://www.fortgordon.com/rtj_bio.htm

[Mike_Sweeney]

Here's a good if brief bio: http://www.fortgordon.com/rtj_bio.htm

See also:

http://bigred2.athletics.cornell.edu/golf/jones.html

[Mark_Fine]

I've always felt RTJ built a lot of great tests of golf but not a lot of what I would call great golf courses (especially considering how many courses he built).  If you play and study enough of them, you start to see what I mean.  

We are working on a RTJ redesign now and the committee residing over the Master Plan project has clearly stated to us that they are not enthralled with their RTJ design and really don't want us to restore it.  However, I still have been studying the history of the course to see how it evolved but from what I've uncovered so far, I'm tending to agree with them.  Of course this is case by case and would not apply to all of RTJs designs.  

[Bill_McBride]

The most recent RTJ Sr course I played was the least RTJ-like I've ever played:  the Gold Course at the Wigwam in Phoenix area.  After Forrest Richardson's excellent restoration (renovation?), it really feels more like a Billy Bell Sr beauty.

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

My question was related to your comment about Rees, RTJ II and Rulewich carrying on a modified version of RTJ.

Do you see RTJ in Rees redesign of Bethpage-Black?

Tom MacWood,

I don't, do you ?[/color]

[T_MacWood]

Pat
I never saw any RTJ in Rees's work until Mike brought it up and he got me thinking. I have to admit there is something Trent Jonesian about the way Rees re-bunkered Bethpage's greens. So the answer to your question is yes.

[TEPaul]

Mark Fine said:

"We are working on a RTJ redesign now and the committee residing over the Master Plan project has clearly stated to us that they are not enthralled with their RTJ design and really don't want us to restore it."

Mark:

That remark of yours is a very curious one and maybe it wasn't intentional and maybe you might want to reword it.

You say you're working on a RTJ redesign now? Do you mean a restoration or a redesign? At the end of the remark you say the committee on the project isn't enthralled with the RTJ design and they don't want to restore it? So what are the options here---is it a choice to redesign or restore the RTJ?

Here's why I'm asking. Last summer a club and course I know really well, the London Hunt Club in London Ontario got me back up there to talk to them about what they should do with some of the direction of their current project on the course.

It's a 60s RTJ and over the years committees and whatever made all kinds of changes. So recently they came to realize what a mistake that was and they got Rees (Keith Evans actually) up there to look at it. So they decided to basically restore it even though Rees did tell them his ideas weren't precisely his father's ideas.

So I went up there and I realized what a good golf course that old RTJ is or was. There are a lot of pretty unique things about it that are basically the essence of RTJ. Basically the course plays really great even if it's pretty different from a lot of what we talk about on here.

Here's why I'm telling you this. In my opinion, you should definitely caution that RTJ club you're working with that they should very strongly consider restoring it to the way he built it.

I think it's just pointless to try to turn an RTJ into something that it just isn't by redesign. That's probably no different than the entire phase of everyone trying to turn many of the old classics into something they're not in the last 40-50 years.

RTJ's style might be at a low ebb right now, but in my opinion, it's just too significant in the evolution of golf architecture to risk screwing around with and making it into something it's not.

If it's anything like London Hunt, I'd strongly encourage you to encourage them to restore it not redesign it in any way.

RTJ was a most significant architect for a good reason. His style is so different from most of what we like but his style was significant anyway and it may return with some popularity one of these years.

But RTJ's courses are undeniably interesting to play even if quite different from our favorites. Generally about 1/3 to 1/2 of his holes have very interesting optional diagonal carries off tees (his "heroic" idea) and most all his greens are unquestionable interesting to approach in an aerial sense.

Let's learn from history and let's don't just go and repeat the mistakes that were wrought on so many Golden Age classics.

Encourage them to restore the course, like I did with London Hunt. Ultimately I think they will realize it's more than worth it. They have a unique architect and architecture in the evolution of it all and they should keep it the way RTJ designed it to be.

[T_MacWood]

TE
Not all RTJ courses are worthy of restoration, just like not all Ross courses or insert name of golden age architect are worthy of restoration. You have to evaluate how good it was at inception and how it has been redesigned and evolved over the years.

In Columbus we have two early Trent Jones -- Winding Hollow and Raymond Memorial. The first would be a prime canidate; the latter not so much.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

That's your opinion. To suggest or even imply that there should conceivably be some group of experts to make decisions about what should be restored and what's not worthy of restoration is both dreaming and unworkable, in my opinion.

If any RTJ course's club feels like restoring back to the way it was designed and built by RTJ, in my opinion, that's their call, and not yours or mine or that of some panel of experts or whatever. If RTJ's stock and popularity rises again someday which it probably will in one way or another or to one degree or another they'll all probabaly be more than grateful they didn't redesign their course into something it never was or was supposed to be. And even if it was never redesigned or tampered with after 30-40-50 years all golf courses need something in the way of capital restoration. Things to do with courses and their architectural features just wear out over time, you know.

[T_MacWood]

TE
You appear to be confused. Sometime ago I suggested that a panel of experts recognize landmark designs that should be preserved, protected and in some cases restored...I'm not in favor of convening a panel everytime Gulph Mills hires another architect.

Your blanket restoration policy is not a good idea IMO.