The storied Chicago course receives US Golf Digest‘s “Best Transformation” in America award after a much-lauded overhaul by Australian design firm OCM.
Through the 1970s and ’80s, few courses exemplified the ideal of the “championship course” more than Medinah No.3. In an era when toughness correlated with greatness, Medinah looked the part, flexing its toughness in the form of tight, treelined fairways, thick rough and greens that played like marble staircases. By 2019, however, when the No.3 course hosted the BMW Championship, time and maintenance technology had passed it by. Justin Thomas’ 25-under score officially killed any remaining intimidation factor, and a course once positioned inside the top 10 suddenly seemed out of date and in danger of slipping off Golf Digest’s ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Courses entirely (it was No.93 in 2023-2024).
Drastic times call for drastic measures, and in 2020 the club hired the Australian firm of OCM (former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead) to come up with a new path forward. Their plan, which marinated through months of COVID travel restrictions, evolved into an unconventionally bold vision for a storied major championship site. It centred on altering the conception of what Medinah was – not a narrow, wooded restrictive course but one that was broad, dynamic and capable of changing daily.
A vast number of trees were taken down to broaden playing corridors and reshape fairways. Bunkers increased and expanded, reverting to a rough and irregular style that would have been recognisable in the 1920s. Greens were enlarged and infused with meaningful internal contours. Holes five and six were shifted left to abut an out-of-bounds fence, recalling old courses from the UK. Two of the par 3s that played directly over Lake Kadijah were eliminated. And most significantly, the last six holes were replaced and rerouted with new ones, including the driveable par-4 16th playing diagonally across the lake and the par-3 17th crossing back the opposite direction. It adds up to a head-spinning change of direction for Medinah, but one the panellists endorse. We’ll find out if the radical transformation helps re-establish No.3’s reputation as a design ready to do battle with the world’s best when it hosts the 2026 Presidents Cup.
This is OCM’s first Golf Digest award.
Medinah Country Club/Seth Jenkins
