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Robert Trent Jones Jr interview
 Robert Trent Jones Jr (right) and his father. YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSDUBAI, UAE (CNN) -- CNN World Sport's Justin Armsden interviewed Robert Trent Jones Jr, who has designed or remodeled hundreds of golf courses during his career. The following is an extract of the interview which aired on the Living Golf show. JUSTIN: Trent, can you tell us why you are involved in designing a course in Hungary? TRENT: Well Justin I'm happy to be in Hungary. As you probably know I worked on the first golf course in the then Soviet Union, now Russia and it hosted a European Tour event. So working in the East block in those days was tough, but now that it's freed up, golf has come into many of the Eastern countries. The Czech Republic has maybe 50 courses. Hungary only has seven and I've been in Budapest before on other matters and I think it's waking up because as you know was once called the Paris of the East. Beethoven wrote some of his music and there's a renaissance going on in Hungary and golf is part of it. JUSTIN: Is it one of the last golfing frontiers? You look at China it's obviously a huge frontier. Is the Eastern block one of the final golfing frontiers you see? TRENT: I think it is Justin. I think the Western world has finally come in the Eastern world. Golf is always a sport for all ages and all peoples. The Scots invented it but it traveled with their military arm of the British Empire to places like India, Egypt, Malaysia and they had horse sports and they had a golf course inside the oval. So the game has finally come. After Moscow opened up a golf course, we knew the Cold War was over because the Reds were on the greens. JUSTIN: How do you see your main market in Hungary? Its first championship golf course was only built some 13 years ago. There are only 10 to 13 million people in the country. Do you see tourists and foreigners as the main market for the golf course or do you see the locals taking up the game? TRENT: Well the course's name is Zala Springs as its name implies it's in hot springs area which is not only golf. There'll be a spa and horse sports, hunting and all sorts of things to enjoy life. And it'll be a lifestyle village as well, new property owners will be coming there so some people will buy property there and some will be tourists. As you pointed out there are seven golf courses in all of Hungary but millions of people who are not playing. But the younger generation when they start to earn a bit of money they're going to play golf just as they do here in Ireland. JUSTIN: How important is it for the sports authorities in Hungary to not only take advantage of the fact they have a great name behind the course as in yourself as a designer, but it's also important to encourage people to play the game as well. You can't just put a course there and say "right people will come for sure." They must encourage people to play. How important is it for the government to get behind golf in the country? TRENT: The governments of most of the European countries they fund sports authorities in various sports. The Olympic Committee for example in each country helps fund the young athletes who compete to get on Olympic teams and then compete at the Olympics eventually. So in most countries, the government is behind sports. Golf is a new sport to them and I would hope and my belief is that the Hungarian government will fund it just as they do other sports for young people that learn the game and become a part of the culture of golf. JUSTIN: Let's talk about the design of the course itself. What challenge do you see and how excited are you about designing a course? I understand there's a river running through it as well. TRENT: Yeah there is. The Zala river. And it's a lovely flowing river going down to the lake. This is a relatively open land so we're going to use a lot of fescue grasses for definition. You know golf targets are hard to pick out when it's open land. A bit like open sea. So just as a lighthouse tells a sailor where not to go, we have to put markers to let the golfers where not to aim. So the high grass is fescue, waving grasses like grain in the fall will be their demarcation of very rough and the creek itself or the river will be close to in play but protected environmentally. And there's a village in the middle but this is a core course. When you're out there, you'll be in the countryside playing real golf. JUSTIN: Let's talk about how difficult you're going to make the course relatively speaking. You don't want to make it too difficult or too long? TRENT: Well you know difficult is in the mind of the player. Not only is the course itself set up with multiple tees so it can be relatively easy for the beginner. In fact we'll have some children's tees out in the doglegs to encourage them to play with their mother father grandmother when the family is visiting on a holiday they can all go out and have a hit together. The challenge for the local people will be maybe the middle tees and then the back tees will be for the touring professional or great amateur player and hopefully a national championship may be played on this course. But those tees are very far apart, have different angles, they're wider, shorter, longer and they set the course up differently for different people. Now that's only part of the game. Length is only part of the game and of course the young quarterbacks/ limberbacks they hit the ball into orbit these days with their big headed drivers and their aerodynamic golf balls and you know I'm on defense so I'm thinking 'What do I do? Should I have a portable bunker and go under and figure out where it's going to end, get there by the time it lands and maybe I can have a bunker underneath there.' But I can't that's a bit of a fantasy. But what we do maybe is set up some hazards and maybe cross hazards so the best players can't always use the drivers or set the diagonals of the fairway where if they do carry the inside of a dogleg over the hazard or the rough, they have to not only how far they hit it can they stop it before it gets into the rough or a bunker on the other side of the fairway. In other words, it's control we're concerned about off the tee. Then the game is on for everybody. Approach shots are the same for most people. We have an open entrance green where the ball can roll up, particularly in the links style course where you keep the ball on the ground. So the ball runs like a rabbit forward. But the professionals and the best players usually play an aerial game. It's more of a world war II approach than a world war I approach -- the ground game. And I think we can't be all things to all people. We want the course to yield to good thinking and good play for the better players who are thoughtful golfers and we want it to be fun for everyone else. Championship golf courses are played maybe once every five years on two championship European tour maybe occasionally on repetitive tournaments such as the Moscow Country Club each year and if that's the case like Augusta National you can set up the course for like green ice, slick and fast and hard for that particular event. But most golf courses will never host a championship except the club championship so that's the best thing we're going to do make it interesting and challenging for the members themselves. JUSTIN: What about the climate? What are some of the issues you face there? You can't play golf all year. Well you can but in some snow. What are some of the issues you face there in designing a golf course? TRENT: Well the climate is lovely in the summer time it's a place which was a watering holein the old Hapsburg days and up to World War II it was a place they called the Paris of the East it was very social place. Lake Balaton itself was a lovely summer place for the people of central Europe. And I think in the winter now you probably should go skiing. If you're gonna go to play golf you'd better bring some anti-freeze with you in the form of some whisky. 
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