RT Jones Sr. - GOAT?

[Mark_Fine]

We don’t talk about him much.  For over 70 years he designed or remodeled over 400 golf courses all over the world, a number of which are considered the greatest on the planet. Many of his designs were game changing.  He ushered in the aerial game.  Made risk/reward and temptation a design standard.  Changed the perception of water and even trees as prominent hazards.  Impacted green design and maintenance practices.  His work spurred on sooo many architects who tried to emulate him or take chances and do things completely different.  He surely was one of if not the most influential architects ever but could he also be the greatest of all time?

[Ira Fishman]

Michael Jordan is the GOAT.
Pele is the GOAT.
Simone Biles is the GOAT.
Minnesota Fats is the GOAT.


That is the list. RTJ Sr. is not on it.


Ira

[Andrew Harvie]

I think the tone of the post gives it away that it's a troll post but he's not my choice. I think RTJ is over-hated (in fact, a lot of his earlier stuff looks interesting. It was said back in the day there wasn't very many differences between Stanley Thompson's work and RTJ, aside from RTJ liked to pinch fairways more--I'll have to find the article), but I don't think he did enough groundbreaking designs to be the GOAT, and can he really be the GOAT if a lot of his renovation stuff is being ripped up now?

[Jim_Kennedy]

I think it was determined some years back that Ted Robinson Sr. was the GOAT. 

[Tom_Doak]

My impression was that Mr Jones thought he was the greatest, and didn't care if we agree or not.


Being the Open Doctor helped make him famous, but he spoke of his own designs instead of those.


He was the only person I ever met who had personal stories of Ross, Tillinghast, MacKenzi, and of course Stanley Thompson.  Come to think of it, he might have been the only person to know them all.

[Mark_Fine]

As I stated RT Jones isn’t discussed here much.  Were his courses too hard (easy bogie, tough par), was it because of his dislike of push up greens which lead to the design spec for the USGA green, was it because he favored water too much and trees to much in his designs, is it our dislike of heroic temptation which he loved to incorporate in his courses, is it because we just don’t care for his courses like Peachtree and Valderamma and Spy Glass Hill and ...., was it his lack of respect with his redesign he did to many of the holes at Augusta National, it is because he only brought golf to 35 different countries around the world,..., what is it? 


As far as the comment about many of his golf courses getting tweaked or redesigned - wake up everyone - that is what happens to almost EVERY golf course and it will eventually happen to even those courses we all cherish so much today.  Even the greats of the past, Tillinghast, Ross, Mackenzie,... have had ALL their golf course altered even those they considered their best designs.  They would likely marvel at the “restoration” work that is being done today and chuckle that we even call it restoration.  They would have never conceived of the maintenance practices and technology that is part of the game today and in many cases applauded the changes.  Change in golf courses/architecture is part of the circle of life and courses will always evolve.  RTJ even redesigned many of his own courses and if he were alive today would be redesigning many more.  He would likely also adapt to the changing architecture “flavor of the decade” or change it himself as he did throughout his career. 


Do I really believe he is the GOAT?   I am hoping to get some help trying to convince myself why he is not or at least not high in the mix? 

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Sorry our posts crossed in cyber space.  I agree with your comments!

[Mike Sweeney]

We played the RTJ Trail (Alabama) - Cambrian Ridge as the final course on my Thanksgiving Southern Tour. My guess is that Roger Rulewich did much of the work, but it is the RTJ Trail, so RTJ should get the credit. It has some Augusta elements to it:



We drove up from the flat terrain of Pensacola, FL, where my son lives, so I was surprised at the very hilly terrain just two hours north. It was similar terrain that Rees Jones had to work with at Lake at Isles in Connecticut, which is un-walkable. We walked Cambrian Ridge, and I was worn out as the last course of the trip, but it was just inside the box of walkable. My son really enjoyed Cambrian Ridge as it had:

• Many heroic shots
• Some faster and wilder greens

Now for me, it showed the Yin and Yang of RTJ. Lots and lots of Doak 5's and 6's, but RTJ just does not come back to finish off the details that make for Doak 7's. I guess there is a similar story to Donald Ross, but Ross made walkable courses, which I prefer.

The 9th hole of the RTJ Sherling nine was one of my favorite holes:




Now just across and playing up the right side of the same canyon was my "blow it up hole" the 9th at the Canyon 9 hole course:



My son on Sherling #9 looking at Canyon #9 fairway.



Why blow it up? Too narrow of a fairway, ridiculous containment mounding on the right that could have been smaller to widen the fairway, and then a silly 3 tiered green (no picture) that was over the top, for me.

At the end of the day, it is a course built for carts while Mid Pines (first course of the trip) was built for walkers. I prefer walking so obviously I prefer Ross courses.

That said, the comment about RTJ restorations of other course is certainly accurate, but have there ever been any redos of RTJ courses? It seems like he was a Master of building very good, but not great courses for cart players. That means he will never be a GCA favorite, but Developers probably loved him as he built solid courses that they could sell.

I liked, but did not love his Cashen Course at Ballybunion. Again, he just seemed to be in a rush to get to the next project and did not finish off the details:


Similar views of Cornell, Colgate Seven Oaks, Duke (Rees), Fox Hill (LI) and some Florida RTJ. Always good to very good, but not great and they do follow a formula of Par 72, 6800-7000 yards, 4 par 5's, and 4 par 3's...

[Steve Lang]

   I thought Ali was the GOAT and he bragged on himself!

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
Nice post.   Lots of good points.  I liked and agreed to a certain extent with your comment about lots of 5’s and  6’s and at times seemed like he was already moving on to his next design.  There had to be some truth in that especially if you are handling the number of projects he took on literally all over the world.   But he did, just like Ross who also designed a lot of 5s and 6s (Ross might have done more 3s and 4s than Jones) manage some great ones as well.  If it weren’t for Covid for example, I would be in Hawaii right now playing golf at some place like RTJ’s Mauna Kea which is a great design or a newer course like Kidd’s Nanea.  And if it wasn’t for RTJ, no one would be playing golf there because it was his vision and “out the lava” thinking that proved great golf could happen even in a desolate lava field like on the Big Island in Hawaii.  Then you have RTJ’s “bunkers in the sky” at places like Valderamma that made me think differently about trees.  He made others think very differently as well like Pete Dye who purposely tried to be very different than RTJ. But as many of you know, if you play enough Pete Dye courses even Pete didn’t get completely away from many of the design concepts RTJ used especially when it came to trees and water and temptation on a golf course. 


Also I am not sure I would call RTJ any more formulaic than some of the other great architects we admire here.  Like most, he did have a formula that worked and he used it often but he also wasn’t afraid to do something unique or different and if you play enough of his courses you will see that.  I mentioned Peachtree earlier, if you can’t get on Augusta National, this is about as close as you can get to that kind of special experience and it is very walkable I might add 

[Tim_Weiman]

Mike Sweeney,


By all accounts from friends in Ballybunion, RTJ loved working on the Cashen. Neil Regan may by able to second this perspective as our mutual friend Kevin Frost both hit balls for Jones and did sketching and paintings for him.


Whatever flaws the Cashen might have had when it opened, I’m told Jones loved it and was proud of it.


The people of Ballybunion were very grateful to Jones. When planning for opening day, they asked him if there was anything they could do for him. Apparently Jones broke into tears. The one thing he wanted was for his estranged son to attend. This is the part Neil may be able to help with. I don’t recall whether his son actually made the trip, but I remember vividly that is what RTJ most wanted.

[Mike Sweeney]

Tim,


You and Neil can remind me of this hole # at Cashen, I can't get past the cart!!




We had "local guide(s)" that day around Cashen:

[Ben Stephens]

Michael Jordan is the GOAT.
Pele is the GOAT.
Simone Biles is the GOAT.
Minnesota Fats is the GOAT.


That is the list. RTJ Sr. is not on it.


Ira

Add Gareth Edwards is the GOAT to that list 

[Bernie Bell]

It's hard to dispute that RTJ cut a professional trail that no one had walked before, which to my understanding was to the great benefit of many who followed.  Herbert Warren Wind certainly found him worthy, and HWW knew some things. 

[Niall C]

Mark

Let me dissect your OP if you don't mind;

Remodelled or designed c.400 courses - that is a fair number but so did MacKenzie and so did Braid as evidenced by the book "James Braid and his Four Hundred Golf Courses". I don't know what the count is for Colt but suspect it will be a similar high number, so overall number of designs alone don't make Jones GOAT.

"A number of which are considered the greatest on the planet" - if you are going to go on stats then probably the percentage of top courses is more valid than any other stat. Does Jones have a higher percentage of the top courses than any other GCA ? Frankly, I've no idea, but you did mention 3 of his courses, 2 of which I've played. I thoroughly enjoyed Spyglass and Valderamma but both show design weaknesses (IMO) and neither would make my list of top courses.

"He ushered in the aerial game" - I've never heard that claim before. I'd have thought that the development of the aerial game was probably more a function of improved equipment (clubs/balls) and greenkeeping practices. Was Jones the first to react to these changes or was he just part of the herd ?

Risk/reward as a design standard - surely JL Low and Stuart Paton were there first ? And didn't the likes of Simpson and to an extent MacKenzie write extensively about these ideas ? To give the credit to Jones, seems to me to ignore the whole Golden Age all together.

Trees, water and green design - Trees ? well maybe, but not sure how he used them specifically in a way that was different to anyone else. Water ? I'd refer you again to Simpson/MacKenzie writings where they give designs and how they incorporated water features into hole designs. Also CBM and Cape Hole. Green design ? one of the weaknesses of the two courses mentioned above that I've played were the greens. Not bad as such, but not great either. From what I recall there was an awful lot of simple oval greens flanked/surrounded by bunkers that didn't really demand a lot of positioning for the approach shot. I'm conscious that's a very small sample of his work so I'd be interested to hear what makes his greens so good.

Overall you may be correct in saying he is under rated but if Spyglass and Valderamma are 2 of his best then I'm struggling to see how he'd be rated GOAT.

Niall   

[Tom_Doak]

Herbert Warren Wind certainly found him worthy, and HWW knew some things.

What Mr. Wind wrote about RTJ in the 1960's was not how he felt about him when he and I had lunch in 1982.  HWW was one of many who encouraged me to work with Pete Dye.


For me, the weakness of Mr. Jones' courses is the lack of small details that make the short game interesting.  His method and time on the ground were not a lot different than Donald Ross's, but using bigger equipment eliminated a lot of the small detail that came naturally in the days that greens were built by real horse power and finished by hand.  In the end, the appeal of construction methods in Mr. Jones' day was "efficiency," but it efficiently reduced character.

[Tommy Williamsen]

RTJ certainly had an outsized influence on the game and clubs all over the country wanted a design built by him. He is not on my short list, however. That said I enjoyed James Hansen's book A Difficult Par. It is a great read.


https://www.amazon.com/DIFFICULT-PAR-ROBERT-Hardcover-May-08-2014/dp/B00UMZ53OG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=39ERBXZTKNQX4&dchild=1&keywords=a+difficult+par&qid=1606834168&sprefix=a+difficult+par%2Caps%2C144&sr=8-1

[Thomas Dai]

Aren't there various tales about alleged turf nursery and construction company ownership and usage?
atb

[Tim Gavrich]

There's a certain stateliness to the two best RTJ courses I've played - The Dunes Club and Point O'Woods - that is quite attractive to me. Even though the most interesting golf has a bit of cheek and chaos, there's an undeniable appeal to the aesthetic sense of order that RTJ and his contemporaries' courses seem to pursue.


The formality of runway tees, fairways with long straight lines or smooth curvilinear bends and compass-point bunker placement creates a comforting look. I'm not saying it's my favorite style of golf, but to the extent that millions of people see golf chiefly as recreation, I would wager that that look is more compatible with the way they interact with the game than some others.

[Ken Fry]

Would it be appropriate to tag him the GOAT of golf design BUSINESS & MARKETING?  Prior to RTJ Sr., how many people knew the name of a course designer or cared to know?

Can an architect whose highest "ranked" original design course in the US isn't even in the top 25 (Peachtree) and has only 3 original designs in the top 100 (Peachtree, Spyglass & Congressional Blue) be considered the GOAT?  No original courses listed on the World List?  (For all any of that really maters...)


Strategic design and visual deception were used in design long before RTJ Sr. came along.  Quite frankly, how is digging a small pond in front of a green considered a revolutionary use of water as a hazard?

RTJ Sr.'s style has fallen out of favor (although do the runway style tees really look worse than a hole having 6-10 different teeing grounds???).  He was a prolific designer and a master at promotion.  His portfolio is filled with many really good courses, not just many really great courses.

In time, I believe appreciation for his work will increase but not to the point where his original designs will occupy spots in what many will consider the world's best golf courses.

Ken

[Mark_Fine]

Colt probably did 120 or so of his own designs and maybe 150 or more redesigns. Mackenzie only did about 50 originals and far less redesigns than Colt. 



I always considered Flynn as a “transition” architect (he employed a balance of the ground game with the aerial game) but it was RTJ who really focused on the aerial game as the prime way to play his golf courses.


RTJ is well known for his risk reward design concepts and if you play a lot of his courses you will see this characteristic used more frequently than others.  As with most any design feature, there are always others who used those features as well but quite often water played a strong role in his designs more so than most any other architect.  The same goes for trees.


I didn’t say his greens were all outstanding (some are very unique like #4 at Spyglass Hill) what I said was that RTJ was the catalyst behind the USGA green spec because he didn’t care for push up greens. 


I mentioned just a few of his best courses but there are so many.  Google him if you want to see a complete list of the courses he designed or was involved with.  Those who don’t think he designed or remolded many good ones might be surprised.


I have always said in the past that RTJ didn’t always design the greatest golf courses but he did quite often design great tests of golf.  There can be a difference.  Not all his courses inspire me or have the subtle nuances and character that I like to see but he did so many far above average designs that it is hard to overlook his contribution to golf course architecture. 


His lack of attention to detail that has been noted at times is true, but we can say that about many others as well including other possible GOATs like Ross.   One thing is for sure, RTJ was more involved with the majority of his designs than Ross was (as we all know Ross never set foot on about 1/3 of the courses he designed).  He mailed in the plans (and we all know you apparently can’t trust anything that is mailed in but that is another topic      )!


There is no set criteria to define a GOAT in GCA.  I just thought a discussion about someone as influential and prolific as RTJ who gets little love here was worth some discussion.  He would not be my first choice for GOAT but as I said earlier, he really had an amazing run and a resume that very few can even come close to approaching.  Hard to argue against that career. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,  appreciate the post!  Of course, there is rarely a consensus on GOAT, with maybe Gretsky and Jordan being the closest slam dunks?


But, a few, probably too random, thoughts on RTJ.  He deserves a place in the pantheon if for no other reason being the guiding light as the biz re-established itself after WWII.  I have no doubt his style fit those times, and many of his basic thoughts endure today -


- Bigger and bolder than earlier (a reaction to new technology, i.e., irrigation (and lakes) bulldozers getting bigger and better, etc.
- Yes, bigger and bolder fit the times.  That generation was really looking for something different to forget about their last 20 years of depression and war, and he delivered.  That new fangled TV that made more people visually enhanced played right along.
- Extended Tees for more yardage play options (even if his runway tees have gone out of style, the length differences endure)
- Yes, because of his work at the US Open, he did favor the aerial game, a trait shared by the other giant of the era, Dick Wilson.


To be honest, while I haven't played all Jones courses by any means, whether you pick at the bunker style, greens, etc., I don't recall playing a truly badly routed Jones hole.  While some would rate most of his courses 5 or 6 on the Doak scale, I might go a bit higher, although again, no one rates housing courses all that high, and that was why many hired him.


If I were to pick, it would be that (as TD alludes) his design pallet included rolling greens, trees, and lawn/turf panels (in most cases, obviously Spyglass and a few others incorporate the site, but most of his courses were manufactured in housing developments, which also fit the times.  (i.e., the biggest distance issue in golf was from the front door to the first tee)


That said, detail or not, I would say that every time I play a Jones (or Wilson) course, I am struck by how often they got the technical details right, nearly 100% as I see it.  IMHO, we have a whole new generation of gca's missing some of the obvious points they perfected, i.e., don't let overland flow into sand bunkers, etc.


And, whenever I see a discussion of how RTJ or whoever has "gone out of favor" it reminds me that my current generation will face the same fate, someday.  And, IMHO, that is because while RTJ may have overly focused on championship tests, Dye focused on similar, plus NOT looking like RTJ.  Given most modern design is a reaction to the things we find lacking in RTJ designs, I suspect future generations will decide we focused too much on other things just as much as he did.  I wish I knew what the next big reactionary trend would be.......


But, either way, RTJ does need to stand in the top 5, maybe top 10 based on his output, quality, and influence (both positive and negative!)

[Bernie Bell]

Herbert Warren Wind certainly found him worthy, and HWW knew some things.

What Mr. Wind wrote about RTJ in the 1960's was not how he felt about him when he and I had lunch in 1982.  HWW was one of many who encouraged me to work with Pete Dye.


For me, the weakness of Mr. Jones' courses is the lack of small details that make the short game interesting.  His method and time on the ground were not a lot different than Donald Ross's, but using bigger equipment eliminated a lot of the small detail that came naturally in the days that greens were built by real horse power and finished by hand.  In the end, the appeal of construction methods in Mr. Jones' day was "efficiency," but it efficiently reduced character.

Yes, you have shared that story here before, along with the "Howard Johnson" idea.  All I have in Wind's own words is the 1951 profile.  In my own field, there are many reasons why I counsel young lawyers to work at one shop and not another.  Some concern the quality of the work and many others do not.  I'm never too keen on "greatest" rankings, much less GOAT disputes, but there does seem to be consensus that RTJ was the most influential architect of his time.  I guess that's for better or worse, depending on one's perspective.

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff,
Well written as usual.  We will of course never decide on a GOAT for GCA nor was I expecting that but RTJ makes for interesting discussion.  One thing I am certain about (as you stated as well) is that GCA will continue to run through cycles.  What is super cool now will eventually fall out of favor (we are already seeing that now with some design features) and then someday circle back again in a maybe yet another “restoration phase”.  That was the opportunity I saw when I got in the business about 20 years ago.  Very few architects knew much about the Golden Age guys (or even cared who they were or what they did).  I saw it as an opportunity to be different.  Even at my home club if you asked back then who designed the course only one or two members in a hundred would know it was Flynn or even care if they did know.  I went on an education blitz as did a few others I admired and competed with like Ron Forse and we had some fun with it.  My resume doesn’t compare to Ron’s but I have worked on over 75 courses since I started and like to think I made a positive difference for most all of them. If nothing else I helped guys like Tom Doak keep busy between new courses (Tom I had to toss that in there all in good fun)     Cherry Hills, Oyster Harbors, Washington G&CC, ...


RTJ definitely deserves to be in that elite group of the most influential architects all time. He might not be the GOAT but as Tom just said he might be the MIAOAT - Most Influential Architect of All Time 

[Andrew Harvie]

RTJ certainly had an outsized influence on the game and clubs all over the country wanted a design built by him. He is not on my short list, however. That said I enjoyed James Hansen's book A Difficult Par. It is a great read.


https://www.amazon.com/DIFFICULT-PAR-ROBERT-Hardcover-May-08-2014/dp/B00UMZ53OG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=39ERBXZTKNQX4&dchild=1&keywords=a+difficult+par&qid=1606834168&sprefix=a+difficult+par%2Caps%2C144&sr=8-1

Accidentally, it was the first golf architecture book I read. A friend had it and passed it on. It is a good read