How a new golf course called the shoe fits a wider trend

For years, Rees Jones was known as the Open Doctor, the cloak he inherited from his father, Robert Trent Jones Sr. The name was logical. Just like his famous father for him, Jones had become the go-to-architect for updates to large champion arrangements. Before the US Open in 1993 at Baltus role, for example, Jones renovated the lower course of the club, he added length and refined bunkers to improve the shot and strategic challenge. He would later carry out similar committees in Torrey Pines, Congressional and Bethpage Black. There were others, including the Atlanta Athletic Club. But you understand. If nips and tucks were needed to test the best in the world, the doctor was your husband.

Yet Jones has never treated exclusively in megadose designs. And he now prescribes something completely different. His latest project, the shoe, is a friendly test for the rest of us: a 9-hole par-3 layout near Golden Horseshoe Golf Club in Williamsburg, Va., A house that the Jones Family Print already wears. Rees’ father designed the Golden Course of the club in 1963; Rees himself returned years later to build the green course next door. The shoe fits next to them, with holes that vary in length from 43 to 137 meters.

The shoe is also in step with a wider trend in Golf. In the upper resort throughout the country, from Pinehurst to Bandon to Streamsong and Kohrler, par-3 and short courses have become the anger of an industry that has aroused their value as affordable, accessible and sustainable pleasure.

The administrative bodies are completely on board. To give more faithfulness how the game is played today, the USGA and R&A have updated the World Handicap system, so that nine-hole and par-3 rounds count for indexes (if you do not have a handicap, you can sign up for a here). Of course large layouts of tensions still count. And you should also post those scores. But sometimes, if you have the golf bug, nine holes is the medicine you need.

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