Designer tees off on new course
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8/16/2008 - 8/17/08
ALTO — He shuffled to the teeing area, one limp-interrupted step at a time, almost as if he were relishing it.He bent down with some labor (bad hip) to tee his ball. He waggled, drew back and pounded a shot down the middle of the 16th fairway. The 69 year-old had something left other than a keen mind and a love of talking politics. But it was not quite enough to hit another shot along a fairway that was entirely uphill. The old man waited at the top by the green with his playing companion for the day.
A group arrived to greet him after playing their shots. He was appropriately dressed entirely in green as he popped a ball down on the rolling ground that matched his slacks. He was some 50 feet away from the hole.
He gave it a rap ...
The ball tracked up the slope then down and raced toward the cup. The speed was pure and it rode along the break as if it were on a rail. Then it hid away underground after dying at the hole.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. cracked a smile: "Architect's advantage!," he yelled.
"He did the same thing on the first hole from about 35 feet," said Jones' playing partner half in amazement.
Jones Jr. — one of the three or four most respected living golf course designers in the world — was in New Mexico on Wednesday to help open one of his newest creations, Rainmakers, in Alto. It is cut through hills and canyons in Lincoln County and surrounded in 360 degrees by the Capitan Mountains, Sierra Blanca Ski Area and Nogal Peak. But the rain in the name could just as easily be made of tears. It is not a golf course for the faint of heart, nor the doubter of the swing.
Jones Jr. teed another shot on the short par-3 17th, a hole he calls, "the Island Green in the Sky." It plays a seemingly merciful 119 yards, but anything short, left or long is dead. He seemed to be amused by his Frankenstein.
"Not on the green and Bobby's mean," said Jones Jr., a Harvard- and Stanford-educated poet.
Jones Jr. was short (twice in the deadzone), but still having fun. The designer of 246 courses worldwide, including Pueblo de Cochiti in 1980, didn't want anything with his name on it to be easily conquered. He had succeeded once again. Rainmakers' distances are deceiving because of the expanse of the backdrops and the elevation changes. Part of the genius of the layout is that it fools the eye so well.
Jones Jr. reflected on his design at Cochiti and how the Pueblo people taught him a love and respect for the land that he still carries today.
"I learned a lot from them in terms of the spirit of the land," he said. "We prayed with them over the land. Then later, over 3-foot putts, they were praying with us."
Jones Jr. is so good at what he does because of what he is:
"I'm a golfer first and an architect second, sort of like the horse that wants to run."
When he left the course — quite pleased with himself that it holds up so well against all comers — Jones Jr. held court on a variety of topics from Obama and McCain in '08 to Gov. Bill Richardson's potential cabinet position in a Democratic White House.
He missed no shots there.
