But the world-renowned golf course architect was receiving instead of giving recently when he was made an honorary member of the Tin Whistles Club. Jones was presented by Tin Whistles President Bob Blackwell.
“This is a great honor,” Jones said, “because I’ve always been so close to Pinehurst and my wife’s family lives in Red Springs.”
The Jones family was living in Florida when Rees and his brother were brought to Pinehurst for visits by their parents.
“My father (course designer Robert Trent Jones Sr.) had fallen in love with Pinehurst, and he and mom would bring us with them,” Jones said during a talk before an appreciative Tin Whistles audience. “The air travel wasn’t so great back then, so we drove up from Florida and stayed at the Holly Inn and played golf.”
Jones never lost his ardor for the area and never missed an opportunity to return.
“I had a friend in New York who was getting married, and he invited me to attend his wedding,” Jones said. “I was searching for an excuse to say no, when he mentioned that the wedding was going to be held in Pinehurst. I said, ‘Of course, I’ll be there.’”
That trip proved to be an eventful one for Jones.
“We drove all night to get here and then teed off on No. 2,” he said. “I birdied the first hole from the bunker, and after the round we all went to the wedding at the hotel. Later that night, I proposed to my wife.”
Literally born into the game of golf, Jones learned to play as a youngster and competed as a junior, while in college at Yale and later in the army. After graduate studies at Harvard, he joined his father’s golf design firm in 1964 and worked there for a decade before founding his own design company in Montclair, N.J.
Although Jones has left a legacy at Pinehurst with the design of the resort’s No. 7 Course, he is probably more nationally recognized for his work in the restoration of the famed No. 2 Course prior to the 1999 and 2005 U.S. Open Championships.
Jones has designed more than 100 courses and has earned the nickname “The Open Doctor” for his work on courses in preparation for major championships. He has worked on seven U.S. Open sites, five PGA courses, three Ryder Cup venues and one Walker Cup course. The Tour Championship has chosen one of his redesigns, East Lake in Atlanta, as its permanent site.
Robert Trent Jones Sr. was chosen by the Diamondhead Co. to redo the No. 4 Course at Pinehurst for the hosting of the Hall of Fame tournament in 1973. Original plans were to use the No. 5 Course, but Jones pointed out that the housing on some of the fairways was so close that the spectators couldn’t get through. He suggested that No. 4 be used and added a lot of length to the course to keep the pros challenged.
“The No. 4 Course played harder for the Hall of Fame tournament than No. 2 would have,” Rees Jones said.
Jones looks as Pinehurst as the ideal place for golf course construction.
“The land here is so phenomenal,” he said. “When Mr. (James) Tufts came to Pinehurst, he found a gem because the property was sandy, and you could carve the soil -- cut it down or elevate it -- and it would still have great drainage.”
Jones looks at being hired to design the No. 7 Course as a high point in his career.
“The biggest break I got was when I was hired to lay out No. 7,” he said. “I couldn’t believe I was going to have the opportunity to design a course at Pinehurst. I stayed up all night working on the design.
“The course is located on a great piece of property, and it was 20 years old on April Fool’s Day. I redid it three years ago and it’s a course that I’ll always be very proud of.”
Jones is also proud of his restoration work on No. 2.
“That was a true restoration,” he said of the work before the two U.S. Opens. “We basically went back to the old plans before they were changed by Diamondhead.
“The No. 2 Course has stood the test of time. It was built by Donald Ross to be in competition with Augusta National. Ross was originally supposed to design Augusta National until Bobby Jones went to the West Coast and saw Cypress Point, which he loved. After that, he hired Alister MacKenzie to design his course in Augusta.
“Golf course architecture is very competitive. We all want our courses to be the best test of the game, especially if it involves championship golf.
“The course that gave my dad fame was Oakland Hills. Without Oakland Hills, I probably wouldn’t be here tonight.
“When Ben Hogan won the U.S. Open there in 1951 with a 67 in the final round, my mom, who loved everyone, went up to him moments afterwards and said, ‘Ben, I’m so pleased … so proud of you. You must be very pleased with yourself.’
“And Hogan said, ‘Mrs. Jones, if your husband had to play the golf courses he designs for a living, he’d be on a breadline.’”
