Cornell University Library has acquired 70 years’ worth of the collected plans and papers of Robert Trent Jones, who trained at Cornell (Class of 1930) to become one of the world’s leading golf course designers.
The collection was donated by Jones’ sons, Rees and Robert Jr., who are golf course designers.
Combining artistic landscape design and innovative features that encourage strategy and risk-taking, Jones’ courses have hosted major tournaments including the U.S. Open, PGA and Ryder Cup. Jones created some of the most challenging and most photographed golf courses in the world, including Spyglass Hill at Pebble Beach and Port Royal in Bermuda.
There are 325 Jones-designed courses in all (and many others he redesigned), in 45 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and more than 25 countries on four continents. Jones worked decades past the normal retirement age and died in 2000 at age 93.
“He is certainly a Cornell icon,” said Elaine Engst, university archivist. “During his lifetime, when he was approached by another university about donating his papers, he had his lawyer write a letter saying, ‘It is my intention to donate my collection to Cornell.’”
The collection covers Jones’ entire career, from 1930 through the 1990s, Engst said. His voluminous office records include personal correspondence with Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Bobby Jones (no relation) and other legends of the game, as well as captains of industry and politicians; sketches, photographs and slides, contracts, account files and other financial records documenting all of the courses Jones designed.
Now comes the process of organizing, cataloging and preserving more than 200 boxes of Jones’ papers and memorabilia, and more than 400 blueprint plans for golf courses around the world.
“Trying to recreate the original order of the materials is important to a collection like this one,” Engst said. “It would be impossible to work with such a large number of boxes, so you have to categorize. It’s a big jigsaw puzzle.”
The library is seeking funding to have professional librarians, archivists and student assistants go through all of the materials; the work will take up to two years to complete. A basic survey of the collection will identify categories to get the materials into order, Engst said.
Once a guide to the collection’s contents has been compiled, “you can flesh out a good chronology of his life,” Engst said. “You can put together all of the material on a given golf course or see the development of golf courses in the context of 20th century American life; those are some of the ways you’d expect people to use the collection.”
Born in England in 1906 and raised in East Rochester, N.Y., Jones was a skilled golfer as a youth. Entering the College of Agriculture in 1928, he designed his own course of study to prepare for his chosen career, with classes in landscape architecture, horticulture, surveying, agronomy and art.
As a student, Jones designed the back nine of the university’s golf course, between Warren and Pleasant Grove Roads in Ithaca. Cornell’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Course opened in 1941, and Jones completed the front nine in 1954.