The Last Stand of Rees Jones
THE U.S. OPEN AT TORREY PINES REPRESENTS THE END OF A DESIGN ERA IN MAJOR-CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF
The added significance of this year’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
TIGER WOODS double fistpumped and howled to the sky amid delirious screams of a rapturous gallery. He had just rolled in a birdie putt to tie for the lead on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open, and for several minutes in June 2008, the 18th green of the South course at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., was the blinding but bittersweet centre of the sports universe.
Though it would not become official until the next day after a 19-hole playoff with an unblinking Rocco Mediate, the 2008 U.S. Open was the Emperor’s most emphatic conquest. Woods’ 14th major title (and sixth since 2005) seemed like the latest inevitable step toward an unprecedented 19 majorchampionship trophies. But Woods played through pain on a severely damaged leg that afterward required surgery. Eleven years would pass before he would win another major, the 2019 Masters at 43. No one could have predicted it then, but that moment at Torrey has increasingly represented glorious victory presaging the collapsing twilight of one of golf’s greatest major-championship epochs.
The return of the U.S. Open to the South course at Torrey Pines in June marks the twilight of another significant era in major-championship golf: 2021 is likely to be the final time a men’s major championship is contested on a golf course prepared by architect Rees Jones, who remodeled Torrey Pines in 2001 and renovated it again in 2019 ahead of this year’s event.
During the past 33 years, Jones modified 12 courses for the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, covering 22 tournaments and four Ryder Cups. No other living architect has come close to matching his widespread association with major-championship golf or the influence on how these competitions look and play. Every design decision— fairway widths and orientations, tee adjustments, putting-surface expansion and contour, tree removal, bunker locations and depths—plays a role in determining how tournaments unfold and who is most capable of contending. Jones’ architecture has impacted the fortunes of a generation of majorchampionship winners with a mirror dimension of also-rans and what-ifs. But the U.S. Open and PGA Championship will travel in new directions beginning in 2022, ones not likely—at least as it appears—to include the name or imprint of Rees Jones.
If Torrey Pines ends up being the last time Jones’ design ideas are presented in a men’s major, it’s for several reasons. The first is that for most of the next decade the USGA and the PGA of America are moving their tournaments beyond his consultation—the announced U.S. Open lineup indicates the USGA is refining its footprint, settling on a market-driven East Coast-West Coast rotation of courses that includes Winged Foot, Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Pinehurst No. 2, Pebble Beach and to-be-determined California-based courses. The PGA of America is venturing more widely but to sites it has visited this century, mixing in several additional venues such as Aronimink Golf Club near Philadelphia (2026) and PGA Frisco, a Gil Hanse design at the new PGA headquarters in Frisco, Texas, (2027 and 2034). The first vacant dates aren’t until 2028 for the U.S. Open and 2030 for the PGA Championship.
More significantly, an increasing
number of core championship courses have embraced contemporary architectural trends at odds with Jones’ modernist style, restoring their designs to the more natural, organic appearances of their early years. Looking toward the future, clubs are turning back to their past. Baltusrol’s Lower course (site of the 2029 PGA Championship) and Congressional’s Blue course (the 2031 PGA), two clubs Jones had remodeled in preparation for previous PGAs and U.S. Opens, have each undergone substantive redesigns during the past 18 months based on the historical interpretations of Hanse and Andrew Green, respectively, rather than Jones.
The program changes are important because course architecture does affect tournament outcomes. If the players are the actors in major-championship theatre, and the governing bodies are directors capable of manipulating drama via site selection and course set-up, architects are set designers who construct the stage and scenery against which the characters strain. Years before Woods sank the famed birdie putt, Torrey Pines was a beloved but scruffy public course with scenery that overwhelmed the quality of the golf. Jones completely remade the 1957 William F. Bell design for the Open, adding length and fairway hazards, rebuilding every putting surface and shifting several greens, like the third, fourth and 14th,
closer to the property’s canyon edges. The green pads were propped like pedestals with deep, bracketing bunkers recessed into their bases.
Jones extended the championship tees at the par-5 18th 75 yards and installed two bunkers in the left rough. An existing bunker farther down the fairway on the left was adjusted and expanded toward the tee. This is the bunker Woods drove into during the final round; had it not been modified, his tee shot likely would have settled in the rough. Without a raised bunker face near his ball, it’s not certain Woods would have laid up for position like he did; he might have gone for the green in two to increase the likelihood of making the birdie he needed to tie, a choice that would have brought the pond fronting the green (also enlarged by Jones) into play. Without Jones’ modifications, the 72nd hole—and the entire tournament—would have set up differently.
The most obvious alterations made for this year’s Open include the reconstruction of the long northward running par-4 fourth. The fairway was widened as far as possible toward the left-side cliff overlooking the ocean and Torrey Pines State Preserve, though the rolled edge of land, rather than forming a hard precipice, means the hole can only get so close to the drop off. The fairway bunkers on the par-4 10th are now staggered to create short and long landing areas requiring a risk assessment from the tee. Jones added two carry bunkers to the left of the driving zone at the cross-canyon par-5 13th and built a new tournament tee on the par-4 17th, creating an angle that now brings the steep ravine on the left more into play. Bunkers throughout the course were reconstructed and adjusted, pulling them flush to the mowing lines, allowing the USGA to bleed fairways into them, and the championship tees now max out at 7,652 yards.
Jones believes these amendments make an already respected tournament course even stronger. “Torrey Pines has proven to be a championship test that the players like,” he says. “It’s a course that fits their eye, but it’s a test. The greens will hold their shots, but there are hazards around the greens and