Medinah Course #3

Having hosted U.S. Opens, PGA Championships, a Ryder Cup, and Western Opens, Course #3 at Medinah Country Club has been the site of some of the most dramatic moments in championship golf. When OCM (Ogilvy, Cocking, and Mead) completed their extensive renovation and redesign of Course #3 at Medinah Country Club in 2024, it signalled a very different, but not necessarily new, era for the golf course. 

Since it opened in 1928, the course has undergone significant changes. With the hopes of maintaining its bruiser status, holes were shifted, rebuilt, and shifted again, decade after decade. The first changes occurred almost immediately, when eight holes were completely rebuilt by Tom Bendalow after Harry Cooper’s 63 in 1930. George Fazio reportedly did work before the 1975 U.S. Open, same with Roger Packard in time for the 1990 U.S. Open, as well as Rees Jones, whose website lists ”complete redesigns” in 2003 and 2010 (including building the infamous driveable 15th for the 2012 Ryder Cup). The result of all this work was a fairly monotonous test of narrow fairways and small greens, and one that still struggled to test the modern professional golfer. In the 2019 BMW Championship, Justin Thomas cruised to a 25-under total, which included a Saturday 61.  

The land that Course #3 occupies is fantastic. Huge, sweeping landforms seem to set up perfectly for landing zones and green pads, and Bendolow’s original routing made good use of them. The original course was also scaled effectively to show off the dramatic property with spacious greens and large, wavy bunkers. Sometime between the course’s construction and the post-war era, though, those shapes were, predictably, rounded and shrunken, a stylistic trend that continued into the 2010s. By the time the Ryder Cup rolled around in 2012, the greens had taken on a familiar, alien-head shape with narrow entrances bunkered front left and front right. Fairway bunkers that used to protect the inside of doglegs had been shifted to the outside, often lifted above grade with nothing tying them into the surrounding land. The same could be said for the tee boxes, many of which were propped up into mountainous pads. The course was fighting against, instead of utilizing, the tremendous property it occupied. 

In the middle of the property sits Lake Kadijah, a picturesque feature that divides the site and has been ground zero for many of the past and current changes. Originally, only the par-3 second and 17th holes were played across the lake. A new 17th was eventually built, looking nearly identical to the now 13th hole just a few hundred yards down the lake. Instead of using Kadijah to create varied shots and angles, golfers continually played straight back and forth across it. 

Enter the OCM design team in 2021. Without any real American projects to lean on, OCM proposed a bold concept, with a nearly complete redesign of the final six holes. Those six occupied the land around Lake Kadijah, and the results were dramatic. The area now features a multitude of shots, with the par-3 13th playing parallel to the lake, the short par-4 16th playing diagonally across it, the 17th now an angled par 3 playing across the water, and the 18th restored to its original corridor. During the redesign, the team focused on bringing features back down to the ground, allowing them to tie in more to the natural grade and, most importantly, restoring the scale of the golf course by increasing bunker and green sizes. Only time will tell whether Course #3 retains its reputation as the brute it once was.

Take Note…

Year-Round Club. When Medinah first opened, it included not just golf but a collection of other outdoor winter activities, including a ski jump and toboggan slide

Sergio’s Tree. The tree made famous by Sergio Garcia’s infamous approach on the then 16th hole on Sunday of the 1999 PGA Championship was removed as part of renovation work in 2009. But the plaque remains. 

‍A Long List of Architects. The architectural history of Course #3 at Medinah is a long one. Outside of the major projects, it’s believed that William Langford did some work, as did George Fazio, possibly Robert Trent Jones Sr. (it’s listed on his own website), and A.W. Tillinghast, who was employed by the PGA of America in the late 1930s to consult clubs about reducing maintenance costs.

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