The transformation of Medinah No. 3

Presidents Cup 2026: The transformation of Medinah No. 3

A major renovation will have the Chicago-area course looking unrecognizable to most.

Medinah Country Club’s No. 3 course is one of American golf’s most storied tournament venues. It has hosted three U.S. Opens, a U.S. Senior Open, PGA Championships in 1999 and 2006 (both won by Tiger Woods) and was the stage for one of the most unlikely come-from-behind victories in the history of the Ryder Cup in 2012. Yet when it hosts the upcoming 2026 Presidents Cup, Medinah will seem unrecognizable to viewers. The No. 3 course underwent a transformative remodel in 2023 and 2024 by the Australian design firm of OCM (Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead) that cleared trees, expanded and shifted fairways and greens, reshuffled the routing and introduced a series of new holes. Almost nothing is like it was before.

For most of its history, Medinah No. 3, located 25 miles west of downtown Chicago, was the prototypically difficult U.S. Open-style championship course. It foiled players with small, sloping greens ringed in rough, holes that played across Lake Kadijah and narrow doglegs cloaked in trees. No. 3 epitomized the kind of demanding mid-century formula that cemented its place in every edition of our America’s 100 Greatest Courses ranking since the first list was published in 1966, frequently residing inside the top 15 or 20.

Medinah’s stature, however, began to falter as architectural tastes changed to favor courses that exhibited playability, strategic complexity and openness. Those densely packed holes that forced players to hit prescribed, straight shots began to be viewed as a liability. The coup de grace was the 2019 BMW Championship, where, in soft conditions, the top three scores were all at least 20 under par, led by Justin Thomas at 25 under. Medinah was out of step architecturally, and it was now incapable of administering the beatings that once made it fearsome. In 2023, its ranking fell to 93rd.

The club realized dramatic changes were needed and was open to the dramatic suggestion by the Australian architects to fundamentally reimagine what the No. 3 course could be (Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion at Winged Foot, is the captain for this year’s Presidents Cup International team). Their plan was to physically recreate the No. 3 property as . . .