Architect Rankings
The Best Rees Jones Golf Courses in America
Rees Jones built his name twice. First as the son who redrew famous courses, then as the man the USGA called when a U.S. Open venue needed to grow teeth. Seventy five of his courses sit in our dataset across 32 states, and the list splits cleanly in two: originals on raw land, and remodels of other men's work. Judging him means judging both trades at once, because his best week might be a golf course he did not route.
1Torrey Pines Golf Course South Course, San Diego, California
The South Course was a William Bell layout, planned by the father and finished by the son in 1957 on the old Camp Callan army base. Jones remodeled it in 2001 and stretched it to 7,804 yards, and what happened next settled his reputation. The 2008 U.S. Open there, Tiger Woods beating Rocco Mediate in a 91 hole playoff on a broken leg, is the most replayed championship of the modern era, and it played out on Jones's greens and Jones's length. He came back to freshen the course before the 2021 Open, which Jon Rahm won. It is only the second government owned facility ever to host a U.S. Open, after Bethpage, and it sits on 390 foot bluffs above Black's Beach, named for a pine that grows wild almost nowhere else. Our San Diego town ranking puts it where the locals put it. First here, and it is not close.
2Montauk Downs State Park Golf Course, Montauk, New York
Golf was played at Montauk for at least 40 years before Robert Trent Jones Sr. and his son redesigned the layout together in 1968, out at the tip of Long Island, 120 miles east of New York City. Rees Jones returned in 2008 to restore the bunkers and tees on the par 3s. Golfweek ranked it No. 6 among the best courses you can play in New York in 2026, and New York residents could play it for under 50 dollars, per Golf Digest. Wind off the ocean changes the course daily, which is the oldest trick in links golf and still the best one. A state park course at that price, holding that ranking, is the strongest value argument any architect on this page can make. See the Montauk town ranking for the full local picture.
3Atlantic Golf Club, Bridgehampton, New York
His best original work on the East End. Atlantic opened in 1992 on a former 205 acre potato farm, a modern links style course of par 72 and 7,121 yards built for developer Lowell Schulman. Where his father shaped parkland, the son shaped open ground and let the wind do the defending. It is listed among the best courses in New York, and it earns that quietly, without a championship on the resume.
4The Bridge, Bridgehampton, New York
Ten years later and a short drive away, Jones built The Bridge on the site of the old Bridgehampton Race Circuit, par 72 and 7,341 yards with real elevation change, which the East End almost never offers. Two private Jones courses in one small town is a useful experiment: Atlantic is the purer links test, The Bridge is the bigger, louder one. Reasonable golfers argue this order both ways. We take Atlantic's restraint, by a nose.
5Black Lake Golf Club, Onaway, Michigan
The strangest commission on this list, and one of the best results. Jones designed Black Lake for the UAW's conference center, opened June 2000, built and operated entirely by union workers across about 300 acres of northern Michigan forest. He built it old style, no mounds or moguls, using natural grades, par 72 and 7,030 yards. The par 3 14th, the Sahara hole, runs a bunker more than 170 yards alongside it. The course appeared multiple times on Golf Digest's 100 Greatest Public Courses list, which is not where a union conference center course is supposed to land.
6Blue Top Ridge, Riverside, Iowa
Iowa is not where reputations go visiting, so this one counts double. Blue Top Ridge plays 7,481 yards at par 72, rating 77.2, across three landforms, prairie, river plain, and hillside, with three holes on the Iowa River. Its par 5 16th runs 665 yards, the longest hole in Iowa, with a creek splitting the landing areas. It sits on Golfweek's short list of Iowa public courses ranked nationally, and it hosts the Iowa Open. Honest, oversized, regional golf, done properly.
7Griffin Gate Golf Club, Lexington, Kentucky
Griffin Gate opened in 1981 at the Marriott resort in Lexington, par 72 and 6,784 yards of bluegrass parkland off Newtown Pike. It hosted Senior Tour events in its early years, including the Bank One Classic, and Jones later returned to oversee a major bunker renovation as the resort itself was rebuilt. Play is limited to resort guests, which caps its ranking here; the Lexington town ranking shows what it is up against locally. A good resort course, honestly placed last among these seven.
The concession Jones always faces is built into this list: two of his top three are remodels, and the Open Doctor label makes his originals easy to underrate. The Tulsa Country Club redesign, 18 new greens and 41 bunkers added to a Tillinghast in 2011, shows the same careful hand. Critics point at the 30 foot waterfall at Grand Falls in Iowa and call it decoration, and they have a point about the decoration. But a career that holds Torrey, Montauk, and Atlantic at once is not a footnote to his father's. It is its own argument, and the argument ends out on the Montauk point, with the wind up and a state park green fee in your pocket.