Robert Trent Jones Jr.

Jones was born on July 24, 1939, in Montclair, New Jersey, the son of Robert Trent Jones Sr. (1906–2000). He graduated from Montclair High School in 1957. Jones attended Yale University where he played on the Yale Bulldogs golf team and was a part of the university's Beta Theta Pi fraternity. After graduating from Yale in 1961^[1], Jones spent one year at Stanford Law School^[2] and then dropped out to join his father's firm: Robert Trent Jones Incorporated. He rose to become vice-president of the company and assumed control of west coast operations in 1962.

In the 1960s, Jones began designing courses on his own and formed his own company in the early 1970s in Palo Alto, California. His first solo project was in 1971, and redesigned in 2009, at Princeville Makai Golf Club at Princeville Resort, in Hawaiʻi on the North Shore of Kauaʻi. He has since designed or remodeled more than 250 golf courses during his career. In 1979, the Northern California Golf Association selected Jones to design the Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, California. His father, Robert Jones Sr., had previously crafted the Spyglass Hill Golf Course in Pebble Beach, and during this project, he received valuable assistance from his son. Their combined expertise has helped them to design over 400 golf courses worldwide.^[3]

Jones continues to design courses and currently resides in Woodside, California. He has also served as the president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, former chairman of the California State Park and Recreation Commission and has published a book entitled Golf by Design designed to help players understand golf course layout.

Jones Jr. married Anne Claiborne Smith in 1961.^[1][2] The couple have a son named Robert Trent Jones III.