Robert Trent Jones, Jr, visited Sodus Bay Heights on Saturday to officially re-open the ninth green after redesigning it during a visit to the US course last year.

The green, which Jones redesigned at no cost to the club, was unveiled to members before the club’s annual season-opening Reserve Cup best-ball tournament.

Jones had been invited to play in the tournament last year too, but instead took a tour of the course because of poor weather conditions. It was during this visit that Jones observed the ninth green and declared it “unfair.”

“When we got to the ninth green, I said ‘that doesn’t look right’,” Jones said in an interview with News 8. “And they said, ‘that’s the one green that’s controversial – we don’t like it’. And I said ‘I think it is out of character with the rest of the course and what my dad would have done’. So I said, ‘well let me think about it a little bit’. I went into the bar, they got me a drink and I sketched. An hour later, we had a green.”

Jones presented the new design to the club in honour of his father, Robert Trent Jones, Sr – who worked at Sodus Bay Heights between 1926 and 1930 as a golf professional, course superintendent and club manager.

“To have one of the leading golf course architects historically speaking, not just of recent times, to relish his history – his family tradition here – and be willing to come to Sodus Point, New York not only to design the green, but to come open the green, shows how important this is to him,” the course’s head pro, Dave Jones, said to News 8.