Writing from Medinah, Illinois
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Justin Thomas started it all.
Had he not fired a gaudy 61 in the third round of the 2019 BMW Championship – 11-under-par and centerpiece of a record-breaking total of 25-under 263 – to break the day-old record of 63 posted by Hideki Matsuyama, which itself wiped out the 20-year old mark of Skip Kendall set in the 1999 PGA Championship, the Medinah No. 3 course being played in this week’s Presidents Cup would not exist.
The players would still be playing the Tom Bendelow course tweaked by Roger Packard and then Rees Jones beginning in the mid-1980s. The one Hale Irwin captured the 1990 U.S. Open on. The one Tiger Woods scored a pair of PGA Championship victories on. The one the Europeans stormed back to win the 2012 Ryder Cup on.
The one Medinah members regularly bashed their heads in on.
But there was Thomas, late on a Saturday afternoon on a course softened by Friday rains, paying no attention to the 7,504-yard stretching of the layout and scoring birdies on the first five holes, and a pair of eagles along the way, including a hole-out from the fairway on the treacherous par-4 16th – may it rest in pieces – painting a 61 on the scoreboard. Like Picasso or like someone who spray-paints box cars. Take your pick.
Watching Thomas wrap up his 61 from near the 18th green, a Medinah member standing nearby made a prediction.
“They’ll bring the bulldozers in now,” he intoned, not altogether pleased at the notion.
He was right. This version of No. 3 – No. 3.7 in computer-program parlance – is radically changed, with six new holes at the end of the line, created by the troika of Geoff Ogilvy – captain of the International team cavorting here this week – Mike Cocking and Ashly Mead, three Australians whose redesign so captivated the membership during the COVID-19 pandemic they got the assignment before even setting foot on Medinah’s turf.
Much of their renovation is unquestionably delightful. The notion of applying the Aussie Sand Belt look to a Midwestern parkland course worked, from the addition of fescue, eliminating some trees, plus an out-of-bounds fence on three holes to create room for maintenance crews to move about without disturbing member play. Thomas, of all people, had to play a shot – make that two shots – lefty from next to the fence this week. He barely advanced the first shot but made better contact on the second.
Ogilvy said his group wanted to make it harder for the pros and easier for members. One member, North Carolina golf team member (and Medinah member) Grant Rosich, fired a 61 from the member tees shortly after it opened last year, so mission accomplished, it appears.
That split-rail fence signifying out-of-bounds on what are usually the fifth, sixth and seventh holes – Nos. 1, 2 and 3 this week – has made players on the tees nervous. Fewer trees mean broader vistas, and the fescue is thoughtfully placed. One must really be off-line to be in it.
Changing out the final six holes for a new group of six came about largely for two reasons: To once again fix the 18th hole, and to eliminate having three par-3 holes play across the creek that leads to Lake Kadijah, which splits most of No. 3 from the rest of the property.
Now, a par-4 and a pair of par-3s cross the agua, in different directions. But the two problems could have been solved more easily, more inexpensively, and with a nod to Medinah’s rich history for no extra charge.
Rather than build six new holes, two new holes would have sufficed. A new par-3 17th, going east from the hilltop 16th green and along the ridge line once used by a par-3 on Bendelow’s old layout, would have replaced the par-3 17th adjacent to Medinah Road that Packard came up with. Build that and one of the three par-3s crossing the creek is omitted.
Next, do what Ogilvy and Co. did. Build a new tee for the 18th hole on the south side of the steam. The OCM version played 494 yards on Thursday, using a fairway largely from the old Bendelow layout. In our plan, you could have used the fairway Packard built to the left of the Bendelow fairway, or regrassed the Bendelow fairway, or both. In any case, the green would remain just short of the famous flagpole, which is astride the center line of the clubhouse and effectively signifies the heart of the club.
That’s it. Two new holes, plus the Sand Belt look Ogilvy and Co. so effectively brought from Melbourne. The cost? Probably no more than $10 million compared to the $25 million the club spent. The site fee of $6 million the PGA Tour is paying the club for this week would have paid for more than half the renovation, instead of around 25 percent.
The nod to history? One of the unchanged holes would have been the par-3 13th (originally the 17th), where Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Ben Crenshaw, among others, saw U.S. Open hopes go a’glimmering. No extra charge.
Instead, Medinah has a pastiche of a golf course, some Bendelow, some Jones, some Ogilvy. At least, until they change it again.
– Tim Cronin