In the common telling, golf-course design has moved from being punishing to player-friendly. Forget forced carries and narrow, tree-pinched targets — architects now favor width and ground-game options. The result, according to the standard narrative, is less frustration and more fun.

Rees Jones takes a slightly different view.

“Now everybody’s using these sand-bracketed fairways,” Jones said. “Most of the successful architects right now are using that mode to frame the holes. Even though the fairways are wider and the greens might not be as closely bunkered, I think it’s more of a penal style they’re into as opposed to strategic style.”

The noted architect was speaking on a recent episode of the Destination Golf podcast, in a wide-ranging conversation that covered the long scope of his career. Now 83, Jones is the product of golf royalty. His father, Robert Trent Jones Sr. was a giant of mid-20th century course design, known as the Open Doctor for his surgical procedures on a slate of U.S. Open venues. But he was also famous for his own projects — so many around the globe, in fact, that he was fond of saying that the “sun never sets on a Robert Trent Jones Sr. course.”

Decades later, Rees inherited his dad’s Open Doctor mantle (among other commissions, he was enlisted to help ready Torrey Pines and Bethpage Black for national championships), while — also like his father — building a thick portfolio of original work. More recently, Jones and his team have been busy once more at Bethpage, serving as course consultants in advance of the 2025 Ryder Cup, which will be held in September at the renowned Long Island muni.

Bethpage was built in the 1930s, a Tillinghast design that remains a bear, requiring long forced carries, thread-the-needle tee shots and challenging approaches to bunker-guarded greens. It’s penal, alright, but its demands are different than the courses of today, which, Jones says, put up fierce defenses of another kind.

What makes today’s designs so difficult?

“The everyday player hates sand,” Jones said. There’s more to it than that, and, of course, and Jones went on to elaborate. To hear more from him on the evolution of course design — and a range of other topics — you can listen to the entire episode here. 

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