We’re familiar with the stars, but what about the stage?
As top female professional golfers representing the United States and Europe prepare for the 2024 Solheim Cup, here are 9 things to know about Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, in Gainesville, Va., where the biennial event gets underway this week.
The designer considered it his masterpiece
A prolific and profoundly influential architect, known as the “father” of modern golf design, Robert Trent Jones Sr. wasn’t shy in self-regard. But he only named one club after himself. “The terrain is aesthetically perfect,” Jones, Sr. said of his eponymous project, which he completed in 1991. “I don’t think we could have done anything better anywhere.”
He came upon the land by accident
In the early 1970s, Jones Sr. was flying into Washington, D.C., to inspect a site for a potential course when he looked down and was smitten by a different swath of land, alongside what is now Lake Manassas, roughly 40 miles west of the capital. In subsequent years, he set about purchasing the property, parcel by parcel, until he had enough acreage to execute his vision.
The club hosted the first Presidents Cup (and three others)
Though the club has never staged the Solheim Cup before, this is hardly its first time in the spotlight. It played host to the inaugural Presidents Cup, in 1994, and reprised that role the next three times the event was held on U.S. soil, in 1996, 2000 and 2005. It also was the site of the PGA Tour’s 2015 Quicken Loans National.
It’s not a country club
No swimming pool. No tennis courts. No pickleball. No bocce. “We’re not what I would describe as ‘family friendly’,” says Wayne Valis, a former longtime D.C. lobbyist who now works as a consultant and has been a member of the club since it opened. “We’re a golf club. We have a lot of single-digit handicaps. It’s for people who are serious about the game.”
MJ is a member
It’s no secret that the GOAT loves golf. It’s also not a mystery how he likes to play it. Of the club’s roughly 400 members, perhaps the highest profile amateur is Michael Jordan, who is not known as a fan of the $2 Nassau. “He’s a high roller,” Valis says. “When he comes here, he’ll play 36, stay over and play 36 the next day. And it’s high stakes all the way.”
So is Barack Obama
It’s hard for former U.S. Presidents to keep a low profile. But Obama does his best when he turns up at the club. “He brings two secret service agents and they don’t carry rifles,” Valis says. “They wear long shirts that conceal their firearms, Obama has them ride along in one cart so they look like golfers. And he doesn’t play until late afternoon. He’s very unobtrusive.” Earlier this week, the former Commander in Chief made an appearance at the club to wish the U.S. team well.
