Robert Trent Jones Golf Club
Played Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in 2015. I usually think that RTJ courses are sneakily hard. Bunkering doesn’t look severe but is placed so that it pinches the fairway right where your drive will land. Greens are big but you have to land the ball in the right area or it’s an easy three-putt. Water features are navigable but well-placed hazards. RTJ courses don’t scream tough like Pete Dye’s but when you look at your score at the end, you’re like, “How the hell did that happen?”
The exceptions to the above rule are Spyglass and a good portion of the eponymously named Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. This is a tough golf course with Lake Manassas coming into play on a few holes on the front and almost all of the back nine here. Above is the picturesque though brutally hard 11th. It’s a massive carry to a small peninsula that drops off steeply into the water on all sides. Conditioning on this course was immaculate and the clubhouse is regal. RTJ wanted his namesake club to be able to host majors and challenge the pros and he was successful (well at last in challenging the pros as in the four President’s Cups the course has hosted).
Played with my buddies the Bills. Billie M. is a renniassance man – voice over, comedian, toastmaster, auctioneer, movie critic and one-time Fox and E! reporter. Billie R. among other professions runs Golfaholics. They have some great golf wear and a super cool logo if you want to check that out. Together they are a hoot to play with.
Anyway, back to RTJ. I could add the entire back nine as favorite holes. You’ll see these below in the photos with all the damned water. The back nine here could be one of the top nines in golf. That’s another ranking for another day. This was just one hole after another of visual beauty and intrigue.
Played this the same week as I played Liberty National so I always have these two linked in my mind and I will tell you they are 1-2, 2-1 right around the 50 mark in my rankings. Both are that good. RTJGC long ago disappeared off the Golf Digest Top 100 rankings although it is still a mainstay on the GolfWeek top modern courses.
Why this isn’t on the Golf Digest list is lost on me. I get their usual snobbery and slavish love for the classic links but c’mon man, RTJ is about the golf. It has the strategy, the resistance to scoring (or whatever they call it), everything and it still doesn’t get a whiff. It’s one of the reasons why I am not hell bent on a tour of the top 100. While I would love to play them and generally love what the golf snobs love about them, it would leave a big hole in your golf bucket list if you put blinders on and don’t try clubs like RTJ, just doing the top 100 thing.
I love this blog by this guy who played all GD Top 100 golf courses in a year: Jimmie’s Top 100 Golf Course Tour. Accomplishing that in a year was some serious doing and Jimmie’s back story is way cooler than mine but I look at the break neck pace and the great courses, experiences and people he missed out on and think about courses like RTJ. Hopefully he is going back out there now and filling in some stops. By the way, check out his blog, I think it shows that people (golfers) are generally great people who want to help. No color. No religion. No discrimination. Guys who just wanted to help another guy live a dream. Cool stuff.
Golf Scrapbook 