{"id":49,"date":"2009-09-20T19:36:58","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T00:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnstrawn.com\/?p=49"},"modified":"2010-08-13T17:53:08","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T22:53:08","slug":"a-conversation-with-rees-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/personalities\/49\/a-conversation-with-rees-jones","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with Rees Jones, Golf Course Architect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rees Jones, the younger of the two sons of the legendary golf course architect, Robert Trent Jones, Senior, has built his own reputation in golf design during a career spanning more than four decades. Educated at Yale and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Rees worked for his father\u2019s firm before striking out on his own.\u00a0 \u00a0Not only has Rees produced more than 100 new designs\u2014 among them such well-regarded courses as the Nantucket Golf Club in Massachusetts and Sandpines in Oregon\u2014he has also assumed his late father\u2019s mantle as \u201cThe Open Doctor,\u201d capable of re-working or fine-tuning a championship course such as Torrey Pines or East Lake in order\u00a0to strengthen their defenses against the skill of modern players armed with the latest ball-launching technology. <\/em><\/p>\n

I have known Rees Jones \u00a0since the late 1980s.\u00a0 (I also worked for\u00a0his brother and rival, Robert Trent Jones, Jr, who as Rees was establishing his firm was building his own successful design practice, focusing more on international work than did Rees, who has only in the last few years accepted commissions abroad.) <\/em><\/p>\n

I asked Rees to inaugurate this series of interviews with leading golf course architects for The A Position<\/strong> because I have always found Rees to be a thoughtful and careful observer, not just of his profession but of the golf industry and its constituent organizations.\u00a0\u00a0 We spoke over Labor Day weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Rees

Rees Jones in his element. Photo by Larry Lambrecht<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Rees, you\u2019ve worked on the resurrection of the status of the muni golf course in your capacity as the Open Doctor at Bethpage Black in New York, but you\u2019ve also been the Open Doctor at places like Hazeltine, a course originally designed by your father and the site of the PGA Championship this year.\u00a0\u00a0 Given that we\u2019re having this big debate over the public option in health care, from your point of view as the Open Doctor, what\u2019s the difference between treating a public patient and a private patient?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, you know, the stimulus package did not include funds for any golf projects, so even if it\u2019s public, I don\u2019t think that the present administration is very positive towards the game of golf.\u00a0 Whereas during the Depression, my father built many public golf courses that really served the public well, as far as contributing to their well-being, so I think it\u2019s a shame that this administration has an adverse opinion of the game of golf.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> I do, too.\u00a0 I was shocked when I learned that the stimulus bill gave golf the same status as massage parlors, excluding it from any stimulus funds.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, nobody read the stimulus bill before it passed, anyway, so, some of those things might have been changed, but they never had that opportunity.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> When you were working on Bethpage, getting a muni ready for the greatest event in American golf, the U.S. Open, was it a different experience from what you\u2019d had working on privately owned courses?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019ve done it both with Bethpage and with Torrey Pines, but it really wasn\u2019t any different because the USGA funded the construction of Bethpage, and so I was really working for the USGA.\u00a0 \u00a0At Torrey Pines, it was the Friends of Torrey Pines that was funding it, so I was basically working for them.\u00a0 So in both cases, I didn\u2019t have to go through the normal channels of a public golf course.\u00a0 But I think both those courses are perfectly suited for what we did and they\u2019ve been extremely well received.\u00a0 The finances were good for what I dubbed at Bethpage \u201cThe Peoples\u2019 Open.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Bethpage in 2002 was really the first time a publicly-owned facility had hosted our national championship, and it really brought to the national championship every aspect of the game of golf.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> I just wondered if, from a practical point of view the lines of authority were any clearer working for a private club than when you were trying to do it on behalf of a publicly-owned course– or, because you were working through the USGA in both instances, was it more or less the same?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> To some degree, it made it easier to move forward.\u00a0 The city of San Diego had one designated person, and then there was [USGA official] Jay Rains, so, again, it was easier to get things decided and accomplished.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Did you have your staff try to dig up any historical records about Bethpage, or did you just base what you did on what you saw when you were out there walking the grounds?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, Bethpage had never been changed.\u00a0 It had just become<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0I mean, the bunkers are still there, though some bunkers have been turned into grass pockets.\u00a0 Nobody\u2019s ever done any remodeling at Bethpage, so our model was right in front of our eyes, and we just had to bring it back, to what it had been in the past.\u00a0 The greens had shrunk, which really is just fate\u2014when you have a Depression, or a Second World War, they start mowing the greens smaller to save money and so [USGA Executive Director] David Fay and I just decided to take the bunkers to the greens, rather than bringing the greens back out to the bunkers, and that\u2019s the only real change we made from the original design.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> What was driving that decision, Rees?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, the greens were relatively flat, being that it\u2019s a public golf course.\u00a0 [Albert Warren<\/em>] Tillinghast \u00a0custom-designed his courses.\u00a0 Say, at Baltusrol, or Winged Foot, he had more contour on the greens which is what you would expect for a course which would host a national championship.\u00a0 Bethpage was his Pine Valley, because of the type of sand there, and the cross bunkers, so we just brought them back into play.\u00a0 We moved<\/em> them a lot.\u00a0 We moved them out and re-located them, in light of the equipment of today, but then we re-absorbed the style back to what it was when Tillinghast first designed the course.<\/p>\n

\"Bethpage

Bethpage Black, post-Rees Jones. Photo by Larry Lambrecht.<\/p><\/div>\n

JS:<\/strong> would you consider the remodel at Bethpage Black one of your great successes as a golf course architect?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well in many cases, people kind of questioned whether or not we could pull it off.\u00a0\u00a0 Craig Currier, the superintendent, who I call my \u201cyoung superstar,\u201d said that once people played it, they were amazed at the conditioning, as well as the design.\u00a0 I think we were able to accomplish everything that the USGA wanted.\u00a0 We made it comparable to a private facility.\u00a0 From my standpoint, I think the 2002 Open was probably one of the most exciting championships.\u00a0 The galleries knew who I was because my picture was in the paper, so when I walked inside the ropes they\u2019d recognize me, and they were all yelling, \u201cWe got \u2018em.\u00a0 Our course won.\u201d<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> The general on the battlements….<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> \u201c…we did it, we did it.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOur course is beating these guys!\u201d \u00a0\u00a0And then, I think for the first time ever at a golf event, they did the wave in the stands.\u00a0 It really changed the character of our national championship and brought the public player into that aspect of the game\u2014 and the public player is more than 50 percent of the players in America.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> That\u2019s why it\u2019s sort of puzzling that as a policy matter, as a society we haven\u2019t really looked on golf as positively as on other recreations.\u00a0 \u00a0Nobody complains about fishing’s impact on the environment.\u00a0 Do you think that as an industry, we should be doing more to try to take this on?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> I do think that, especially now.\u00a0 When we had our slow-down and the high interest rates and the oil embargo back in the 70s, golf grew<\/em> because people had more time.\u00a0 The auto industry found that autoworkers drove to Myrtle Beach and played golf.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great escape.\u00a0 It takes your mind off your worries and concerns.\u00a0 It\u2019s a time to hang around with your friends and therefore, I think public golf was very essential in the quality of life in America\u2014because it\u2019s a part of our fabric.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> There\u2019s a tendency among players to think, going back to Hogan\u2019s famous comment about Oakland Hills as a \u201cmonster\u201d in 1951, that golf courses have gotten too hard.\u00a0 But don\u2019t you think now that, given what you\u2019ve done at places like Bethpage and Torrey Pines, that the players expect an Open course to be a phenomenal challenge?\u00a0 They don\u2019t want an ordinary golf course.\u00a0 Is that perception correct?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Yeah, but when my father, Robert Trent Jones, Senior, had the opportunity to create Oakland Hills as the ultimate test of golf for a national championship\u2014 it was because golf courses had gone through the Depression, they\u2019d gone through the Second World War, and Oakland Hills had to be brought back to its previous condition in order to host the 1951 U.S. Open.\u00a0\u00a0 So Dad and [USGA Executive Director<\/em>] <\/em>Joe Dey decided they were going to improve the course, they did create the test, and that sort of led to all of these championship courses being refurbished, restored, or renovated in preparation for individual state championships, or the U.S. Open, and I think the players do expect them to be the ultimate challenge.\u00a0 It\u2019s very nice when you have a Ben Hogan win.\u00a0\u00a0What you\u2019re really trying to do is find the proper champion.\u00a0 When Curtis Strange won at The Country Club at Brookline, he was the number one player in the game.\u00a0 So, the course identified the best players at that time, and with Tiger winning at Torrey and Tiger winning at Medinah, clearly you\u2019ve identified the best player in the game\u2014 but that\u2019s what you\u2019re trying to do.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> You\u2019re the second generation Open Doctor. Were there any special instruments in his doctor\u2019s bag that your dad passed on to you that you still rely on and when you\u2019re going in to renovate these championship courses?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I think my father passed on that you didn\u2019t build a church for Easter Sunday\u2014 you had to design a course so it could be given back to the members, or the public players, after the championship is played.\u00a0 You have to have multiple tees, you have to have open access to the front of the greens for the average golfer to go for the green and not necessarily the flag.\u00a0\u00a0I think\u00a0that\u2019s what my father passed on to me.\u00a0 Other designers build a very tough golf course that\u2019s very suitable for the championships, but can\u2019t be played by the average golfer.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> That\u2019s a terrible dilemma.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I think the Top 100 lists have led to that.\u00a0 But I think that\u2019s changing.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s\u00a0 more a Cypress Point or an Ocean Forrest that is making the top of the lists because they have beauty, character, different types of holes, elevated greens, low-profile greens.\u00a0 \u00a0I don\u2019t think that the toughest golf courses are going to be as much in the Top 100 list as in the past, partly because those tough golf courses are not going to survive this slowdown in golf as well as the ones that are more playable.<\/p>\n

\"Ocean

Ocean Forest. Photo by Larry Lambrecht.<\/p><\/div>\n

JS:<\/strong> There\u2019s a kind of Darwinian weeding out of these over-the-top projects, which are also impossible to maintain.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> They\u2019re impossible to maintain and also, if they\u2019re public, people play them once and then they never play them again.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Exactly.\u00a0 When your dad was working on some of his projects when you were in school, did you ever go on site visits with him?\u00a0 Did you ever travel with him?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Every vacation we took was where my father was building a golf course.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Doesn’t sound so bad….<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> We really didn\u2019t have much money.\u00a0 Everybody was pretty much on the same footing after the Second World War, and we\u2019d drive places.\u00a0 We\u2019d drive to Myrtle Beach [where Trent Jones, Senior completed The Dunes Golf Course in 1948<\/em>], or we\u2019d take the train to Florida when he worked on [the Ocean Course at<\/em>] the Ponte Vedra [Inn<\/em>].\u00a0 If Dad had a project, we would spend a lot of time there\u2014 in Myrtle Beach, or in Connecticut, or at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, where I first met Candice Bergen who was staying there with her father, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.\u00a0 It was kind of fun to spend the summer with Candice Bergen and then see how famous she became.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> No, kidding?\u00a0 She, she also is pretty cute.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> I knew that when she was a little kid!<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> What\u2019s the most fun for you of what you do, Rees?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> I grew up in this business, so I was never really in it for the money.\u00a0 It became very popular and a very strong part of the American fabric and, therefore, we\u2019ve been able to accomplish more because there\u2019s more money in it now. \u00a0We can do more now than when my father was building courses.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t do all the grading on a golf course because he had to spend all the money on the greens and the tees and the bunkers.\u00a0 The most fun is, to some degree, just having the opportunity to do a really \u00a0wonderful job with the land.\u00a0 Not necessarily spending too much money, but having the opportunity to do it so it\u2019ll stand the test of time.\u00a0 I\u2019m also very hands on, I don\u2019t take on too many jobs.\u00a0 I like to be on the ground.\u00a0 The golf course really is mine until it opens, and then it becomes the member\u2019s, or the public\u2019s, but it\u2019s sort of mine to deal with until it opens and then I have to give it away.\u00a0\u00a0I have to move on to another project.\u00a0 The other good part of my business is you get to meet a lot of quality people who become life-long friends.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> That\u2019s what I like about it most.\u00a0 The people willing to take on a golf development project\u2014 which, after all, is a very risky enterprise–tend to be risk takers, strong personalities.\u00a0 That\u2019s the part I like about it the most, too.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> I think when I get the most out of it is when we open it and it exceeds the client\u2019s expectations, which I\u2019m always trying to do.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Does your company maintain an on-going \u00a0relationship with the clients?\u00a0 Do you come back and take a look at things in two years, or five years?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019ve been doing that, like at Congressional now for 20 years.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been doing that at the Atlanta Athletic Club for 32 years.\u00a0 At Baltusrol I\u2019ve been working on the upper course for 20 years.\u00a0 We develop a long-time relationship with a club, and, continues to improve it, especially as the equipment has changed, and the clubs move forward on improving their facilities.\u00a0 Same thing with golf courses like Nantucket, or Haig Point or Ocean Forest.\u00a0 We go back frequently, tweak it a little bit, make some changes, and that\u2019s kind of nice.\u00a0 We can learn a lot after a course opens.\u00a0 Maybe there ought to be another bunker here, or maybe we ought to extend the green there.\u00a0 Same thing at the Atlanta Athletic Club.\u00a0 We re-did the course before the 2001 PGA and now we\u2019ve re-done it again before 2011 PGA.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019re rebuilding twelve of the greens at Medinah this year to make them all USGA spec greens.\u00a0 Now they will match the ones we did for the 2006 PGA.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a critical time as we\u2019re getting ready for the Ryder Cup [in 2012<\/em>], and there\u2019re always things to do. \u00a0So the long-term relationships are very important for the clubs, as well as myself.<\/p>\n

\"AAC-Highlands

AAC-Highlands Course. Photo by Larry Lambecht.<\/p><\/div>\n

JS:<\/strong> You mentioned that when you first joined the profession, it wasn\u2019t for the money.\u00a0 What would the fees have been, typically, in the 50s or early 60s, for 18-holes?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019d actually hate to tell because in this slowdown clients might try to get those fees again!<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> I found the invoice from Chandler Eagan for designing the Eastmoreland \u00a0golf course for the City of Portland in 1917, and as I recall he charged $750.\u00a0\u00a0 Are you surprised that golf course architects have evolved into celebrities of a sort?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, yes and no.\u00a0 I think golf course architects of today have evolved into celebrities, but now we\u2019re also resurrecting the golf course architects of the past, like Mackenzie, Tillinghast and Ross.\u00a0 Long after their passing, they\u2019ve become more celebrated than they were during their lives.\u00a0 And don\u2019t forget, this is a form of art, and\u00a0a form of art that you are interactive with.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a passive thing we\u2019re creating.\u00a0 It creates a lot of discussions, a lot of likes and dislikes, differences of opinion.\u00a0 Therefore, I think they have to put a label on who they\u2019re talking about and that\u2019s why golf course architects are gaining such notoriety. Plus, I\u2019ve been very fortunate to have worked on courses which have hosted seven U.S. Opens, five PGA Championships, and four Ryder Cups.\u00a0 People want to learn more about these golf courses, and I\u2019m the spokesperson and that helps people put a label on us and on those golf courses.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> To say that the amount of golf design work available in the U.S. has shrunk understates the reality\u2014it\u2019s practically disappeared to a point in the distance.\u00a0 There is work overseas.\u00a0 Have the contacts you\u2019ve made through, say, working on the Ryder Cup or PGA Championship venues, been of benefit to you?\u00a0 Have you sought, now, to take your practice international?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I was pursued very often by the Japanese and the Koreans because of my \u201cOpen Doctor\u201d nickname.\u00a0 \u00a0And I was approached to do a championship course outside of Madrid, Golf Club Santander.\u00a0 They wanted to attract a championship–and that course is already ranked in Golf Digest\u2019s<\/em> Top 100 of the World.\u00a0 I think my name is recognizable and I think to some degree in some of these foreign countries certain pro architects have done so many courses that they\u2019ve diluted their abilities to distinguish one course from another.\u00a0 \u00a0I think that\u2019s why they\u2019re looking more to someone such as myself to come over there and put a new brand on golf in China or Korea, and that\u2019s great for me now because there isn\u2019t much work in the United States.\u00a0 However, there is remodeling work.\u00a0 Right now we\u2019re redoing some greens at Congressional, and we\u2019re going to add some length, and we\u2019re doing a lot of work at Medinah and we just converted the greens at Atlanta Athletic Club from bentgrass to Bermuda.\u00a0 We\u2019re doing Baltusrol over, we\u2019re doing a job outside Toronto.\u00a0 People are investing in their facilities here just to make sure they\u2019re the best and to assure they\u2019re able to survive better.<\/p>\n

\"Atlanta

Atlanta Athletic Club. Riverside 18. Photo by Larry Lambrecht.<\/p><\/div>\n

JS:<\/strong> When you\u2019re approached by clients from overseas who are na\u00efve in the sense that they don\u2019t know golf or have a long history with golf, do they ever ask you, \u201cdon\u2019t you need a player to put the name on the project?\u201d\u00a0 Do you ever get that question, and, if you do, how do you respond to it?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019ve only done that really once, with David Toms for the Houston Open, at Redstone Golf Club, and I wasn\u2019t told I had<\/em> to do it.\u00a0 They asked me if it would be okay and I chose David Toms because he became a friend of mine after he won the PGA at the Atlanta Athletic Club in 2001.\u00a0 And he was very helpful.\u00a0 But I think the name architects have just as much of an influence on the success of a project as the pros.\u00a0 There are a lot of pros, but there are very few with as much market value as golf course architects.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> The two architects, or golf design firms, that have really come to the fore, in the last decade-and-a-half have been Tom Doak and Coore-Crenshaw.\u00a0 \u00a0They\u2019ve done well in promoting themselves as having a light touch, a \u201cminimalist\u201d approach, and so on. \u00a0They\u2019ve certainly had some celebrated projects.\u00a0 What do you think when you hear the claim that they\u2019re the only designers able to perceive the \u201creal\u201d character of a site?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, Coore-Crenshaw don\u2019t undertake projects on rugged land, so that gives them a chance to sculpt the land in a less than major fashion, but if you have a rugged site, you do have to move a lot of dirt.\u00a0 I think Tom Doak takes on more rugged terrain, but then he leaves it alone, especially from tee to green, and lets the natural contours survive.\u00a0 But then you also have to make sure you have a piece of property that the ball will stop on.\u00a0 I mean, if you don\u2019t have a piece of property where the ball will stop, you have<\/em> to do some grading.\u00a0 They\u00a0also\u00a0both use this old St. Andrews-style bunkering that was abandoned at St. Andrews because it wasn\u2019t maintainable.\u00a0 Ragged edges, with sides falling in, large bunkers and long bunker shots\u2014 they both favor that same style because it\u2019s very effective and pleasing to the eye, but it is hard to maintain and hard to play out of.\u00a0 That seems to be the vogue right now, this ragged bunker style, but in this slowed-down economy, I don\u2019t believe that\u2019s going to survive as much because the maintenance costs are too high.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Have you played Sand Hills, or Bandon Dunes, or any of the courses that have gotten such acclaim in the last decade or so?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Oh, yeah, I\u2019ve been to Bandon Dunes and I think David McLay Kidd and Tom Doak did a phenomenal job there.\u00a0 That\u2019s just a God-given piece of land\u2014and they also had a lot of land to work with.\u00a0 They both did a really good job. \u00a0The Coore-Crenshaw course [Bandon Trials<\/em>], I didn\u2019t play it, but I saw it being built, it\u2019s more of an inland parcel. \u00a0It\u2019s also a nice piece of land.\u00a0 Staying there and just being there and being part of that theatre of golf\u2014the food is great, the rooms are great.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a great place.\u00a0 I just opened a project called Victory Ranch, near Park City, Utah with very spectacular views of the mountains and views of the valley and the\u00a0skiing areas, and views of the reservoir, and I think if you can develop a great golf course with great views, it becomes a great golfing experience, and that\u2019s what Bandon is, that\u2019s what Victory Ranch is, that\u2019s what Nantucket is, that\u2019s what Ocean Forest is, and that\u2019s what makes them so enjoyable to play on a continuing basis.<\/p>\n

\"Victory

Victory Ranch Club, Utah. Photo by Larry Lambrecht.<\/p><\/div>\n

JS:<\/strong> I was at Bandon in June and we got to go play the 12 holes that were ready to play on the Old MacDonald course.\u00a0 It\u2019s an homage to Charles Blair McDonald and to great golf courses, so there\u2019s a hole in the spirit of the Biarritz, and in the spirit of St Andrews\u2019 Long Hole and so on.\u00a0 They\u2019re not, as Mike Keiser says, imitations,\u00a0 nor replicas, but they\u2019re in the spirit of the courses and holes they honor.\u00a0 The amazing thing about that course, Rees, is the enormous size of the greens. \u00a0\u00a0They\u2019re Old Course size\u2014double green monsters.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> The site gets a lot of wind and I think they wanted to have a have a lot of flexibility in the set-up.\u00a0 They maintained a lot of gorse, at least for now, and I think it\u2019s going to be the best of the four courses. I\u2019m just re-enforcing what you\u2019re saying about Bandon being such a great golf experience.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> And I think what\u2019s going to be great for the resort is it\u2019ll be different.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to be able to play something entirely different from day to day.\u00a0 The one thing about doing either a MacDonald, or a [Seth<\/em>] Raynor, or a [Charles<\/em>] Banks homage is, they all worked together and they all sort of had the same models, with a Biarritz, and a Punchbowl and a Short, and so it probably wasn\u2019t that hard for Jim Urbina and Tom Doak to come up with adaptations of these styles because Raynor and Banks and MacDonald used those models over and over again. There are a lot of courses like National Golf Links for them to look at.\u00a0 In fact, Tom Doak took a whole group people that were working on the project and walked around National Golf Links just to learn a little bit more about MacDonald\u2019s philosophy.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> I remember playing the Cape Hole at Mid Ocean when I went to the annual meeting of the American Society of Golf Course Architects in the late 80s, where I met you and your father and a number of the eminences of the profession for the first time, when I was just starting the research on \u201cDriving the Green.\u201d\u00a0 I remember the thrill of standing on that tee.\u00a0 How many times since has that hole been built?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, not so many really, because MacDonald and Raynor and Banks didn\u2019t do that many courses.\u00a0 They really hand-picked them, much like Tillinghast, and that\u2019s really why I\u2019ve done just a few golf courses every year.\u00a0 The detail is what makes those golf courses. \u00a0I think Tom Doak is pretty good at not taking on too many projects, and so is Crenshaw.\u00a0 So I think you can do that if you spend the time and you have your quality people working on it, like [Doak associate<\/em>] Jim Urbina, so that you really do put all the attention to details, like the pre-Depression golf courses.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Rees, you mentioned the other day that you have a new project in China.\u00a0 How\u2019s that going and are you going to spend much time there?<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019ll be back and forth.\u00a0 Greg Muirhead from my office is in charge of the project.\u00a0 The clients are all coming over in about a week and we\u2019re going to tour them around Victory Ranch and Ocean Forest and Bethpage, and different courses, so they can get some ideas of what we want to do over there.\u00a0 Kunming is a really growing area, and China has an up-and- coming middle class that has money to visit places, like this project, or even to buy real estate, so that\u2019s real opportunity for us in an emerging market.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> I was in China several weeks ago and one of the big things we were discussing at length was the prospect of golf being included in the 2016 Olympics. Right now, it\u2019s taxed as an entertainment at, I believe, a rate of 25 percent.\u00a0 Once golf is officially classified as a sport, it goes into a new status and the tax rate reduces significantly.\u00a0 The official sports establishment will start putting money into golf.\u00a0 I think getting golf into the Olympics will have some impact in the U.S., but I think it\u2019ll have an enormous and enduring impact in Asia.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Plus I think they\u2019ll have a lot of golf schools\u2014just look what happened in Sweden, with Annika Sorenstam and Jesper Parnevik and all the players that came from the Swedish youth programs.\u00a0 And now Korea\u2019s done a phenomenal job, and I think you\u2019ll see that in China.\u00a0 The Korean women are taking over the LPGA Tour.\u00a0 I think that could be very much the case with the Chinese.\u00a0 We have a Korean PGA Champion, and a Korean US Amateur Champion, so I think you could see the Chinese adopt golf as a sport and probably in 5, 10, or 15 years\u00a0 become major players.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> I think so, too.\u00a0 When the Chinese want to succeed at something, whether it\u2019s ice skating, or diving, or whatever, they accomplish it.\u00a0 I think the axis of golf power will shift from North America to China at some point in the mid-21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, it\u2019s a world-wide sport now, which is pretty evident by who\u2019s on the different tours and doing well.\u00a0 It\u2019s a world-wide sport for the two of us, too.\u00a0 We can go to different places and enjoy the game around the world.\u00a0 I just redid Mauna Kea, which was ranked in the Top 100 in Golf Magazine<\/em> after I redid it, and, they get people from all over the world at Mauna Kea.\u00a0 It has such a great reputation.\u00a0 I think some of these Chinese courses and resorts can acquire a similar reputation, and people will travel there.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Rees, I want to thank you.\u00a0 You know, this is the inaugural interview with my friends for the new Web site The A Position<\/strong>.\u00a0 I hope that you\u2019ve enjoyed this as much as I have.\u00a0 I really appreciate your doing it.<\/p>\n

REES JONES:<\/strong> Well, I have, too, John, and you\u2019ve been a long-time friend and you\u2019re very important to golf and its success, so I think your program will be a great success.<\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Very kind of you.\u00a0 Thanks.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

For more information about Rees Jones and his firm,\u00a0go to <\/strong>http:\/\/www.reesjonesinc.com\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rees Jones, the younger of the two sons of the legendary golf course architect, Robert Trent Jones, Senior, has built… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":52,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,17,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf-course-architecture","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2009\/09\/REES.-JONES-300-high-res-4x6.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}