Architect Rankings
The Best Robert Trent Jones Jr. Golf Courses in America
Robert Trent Jones Jr. has 68 courses in our dataset spread across 29 states, from a military course in Anchorage to a links on the Monterey Peninsula, and his career carries a burden his father's never did. Every Jones Jr. course gets measured against the Jones name, and half the golf world walks onto his first tees with the comparison already made. Judge the work on its own record instead, championships hosted, courses that anchor regions, a U.S. Open venue built on a former gravel site, and the case gets strong quickly. His Arkansas work leads the best golf courses in Little Rock, his oldest course anchors the best golf courses in Sedona, and his Kansas City course appears in the best golf courses in Kansas City.
1Blessings Golf Club
Blessings, in Johnson, Arkansas, opened in June 2004 along Clear Creek, funded by Tyson Foods chairman John H. Tyson and home to the University of Arkansas golf teams. It plays over 7,900 yards from the back tees through the Clear Creek floodplain and a plateau 65 feet above it, at a rating of 80.9 and a slope of 155, numbers that place it among the hardest courses in the United States. It hosted the 2019 NCAA Men's and Women's Division I Championships, both of them, after an extensive Kyle Phillips renovation before those championships, plus the 2012 SEC Women's Championship and a 2013 NCAA Men's Regional. Golf Digest ranked it No. 156 on America's 200 Greatest in 2025. The hardest course on this list, and the most decorated.
2SentryWorld
Jones Jr. opened SentryWorld on August 30, 1982, in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, as the state's first upscale public golf facility, and its second life has outshone its first. Renovated in 2013 and 2014 by Jones Jr. with Bruce Charlton and Jay Blasi, it hosted the 2023 U.S. Senior Open, won by Bernhard Langer, after earlier hosting the 1986 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links and the 2019 U.S. Girls' Junior. It is already selected for the 2028 U.S. Senior Women's Open and the 2034 U.S. Senior Open. The par 3 16th is the Flower Hole, ringed by more than 30,000 flowers in a typical year. Public access, major championships, and a flower budget: Wisconsin golf in one entry.
3The Links at Spanish Bay
Spanish Bay, opened in 1987 in Pebble Beach, was designed by Jones Jr. with Tom Watson and former USGA president Sandy Tatum, built on a former sand mine site as a Scottish style links, with a dune restoration plan that won over the California Coastal Commission. Par 72 and 6,821 yards along the ocean. Watson said Spanish Bay is so much like Scotland you can almost hear the bagpipes, and the resort keeps the joke honest, with a bagpiper playing to signal the close of play each day. Part of Pebble Beach Resorts alongside Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, and Del Monte, it is the Jones Jr. course the most golfers will ever play, and it earns the traffic.
4The Patriot Golf Club
The Patriot opened in 2010 in Owasso, Oklahoma, designed by Jones Jr. and Bruce Charlton, and it is the home of the Folds of Honor Foundation, founded by Dan Rooney, an F-16 pilot with the Oklahoma Air National Guard, to fund scholarships for families of fallen and disabled service members. Golfweek named it the Best New Private Club in America for 2010-11, and Golf Digest has ranked it No. 4 in Oklahoma from 2017 through 2026. The par 72 course plays 7,158 yards across prairie bluffs, wooded ravines, and meadowland, its sixth hole carrying alternate par 3 versions played on different days, and Taps is played at the clubhouse every day at 1 p.m. Golf courses rarely mean something beyond golf. This one does, by design.
5Osprey Meadows at Tamarack Resort
Osprey Meadows sits at nearly 5,000 feet of elevation above Lake Cascade in Donnelly, Idaho, on a roughly 400 acre layout, and reopened in 2024 after an extensive restoration with the original Jones II design team, now playing par 73 over 7,447 yards with a slope of 142. Golfweek named it Idaho's Best Public Course You Can Play and a Top 100 Resort Course in the United States in 2026. The 16th can play as a 412 yard par 4 or a 611 yard par 5 depending on the tees chosen, a flexibility that tells you how much room Jones was given and what he did with altitude and space.
6University Ridge Golf Course
University Ridge opened in 1991 in Verona, Wisconsin, as the home course of the University of Wisconsin men's and women's teams, its name taken from a terminal moraine ridge left by the last retreating glacier. Par 72 at about 7,259 yards, with an open meadow front nine and a wooded back nine, it has hosted the WIAA state championships for all divisions since 1994 and the American Family Insurance Championship on PGA Tour Champions from 2016, first won by Kirk Triplett. Golfweek ranks it among the top college campus courses in the United States. A state university's home course that also holds a Champions Tour event is Jones Jr.'s public golf argument in one address.
7Oakcreek Country Club
Oakcreek is where the family story starts: designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. with his son, the oldest club in Sedona and its first golf course, its first nine opened in 1968 and the second in 1971. Par 72 and 6,824 yards, tree lined fairways through red rock country, three lakes in play on five holes, and a par 3 14th from an elevated tee with panoramic mountain views. It plays more friendly than anything else on this list, built to recover errant shots rather than bury them, and it closes the ranking because a Jones Jr. list without the course he built with his father would be missing its first chapter.
The concession: Jones Jr.'s weaker courses can feel like his father's formula at one remove, heroic carries and sculpted hazards applied where the land asked for something quieter, and the RTJ II brand, like any firm working at this scale, signs courses its principals touched lightly. Where the work is fully his, though, a 155 slope NCAA venue in Arkansas, a U.S. Senior Open course the public can book in Wisconsin, a true links built on a sand mine, the record answers the surname question. He built his own list. This is it.