July 2024 - Aussies Rule

Will Medinah's latest makeover attract major championships?
Drone photos by Matt Rouches
This article appeared in the July 2024 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
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This drone photo shows the new 13th tee and green now located on the same side of the lake; the new 16th fairway and green, the new 17th green now located on the opposite side of the lake, and the 18th fairway. In the distance is the green for hole No. 1.

Ryan Potts remembers joking — nervously — with Mike Scimo about Medinah Country Club’s decision to hire an up-and-coming architecture firm out of Australia to makeover its world-famous Course Three.

“It was a courageous kind of insane,” Potts said, laughing. “Understandably, we got pushback from members, but it felt right. We believed we handed our course over to creative, smart people.”

Melbourne-based OCM Golf — comprised of 40-somethings Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead — won the job to re-imagine the Tom Bendelow layout that opened in 1928 and has held five major championships and one Ryder Cup.

After four-plus years of brainstorming and construction, Medinah is scheduled to reveal OCM’s $23.5 million-plus masterpiece to the members in July and the world in 2026 when the club hosts the Presidents Cup.

The risk was worth the reward, according to Vaughn Moore, the club’s president.

“(OCM) showed us a way to rethink our course. It’s more visually stunning than we ever thought it could be.”

Scimo, a past president and chairman of the club’s Presidents Cup committee, said OCM “told us things about our course we didn’t know.

They did their homework, and their knowledge was impressive.”

A Medinah lifer, Potts was as invested as anyone when the club proposed a master plan for Course Three in November 2019. His father was a past president, and Ryan is an executive committee board member and chairman of the golf committee. An architecture enthusiast and former college player at the University of Illinois, Potts was familiar with OCM through online golf communities and is similar in age to the three Aussies.

“I love Medinah, and I’ve thought to myself how I would change certain things a million times,” he said. “After listening to (OCM), I was like, ‘I didn’t think about any of this.’ But it all made perfect sense. We needed to just get the hell out of the way. We told Mike to be bold and brave. You let artists be artists. To the supreme credit of our members, they were all in.”

The new green for the 13th hole is now located on the same side of the lake as the tee, which OCM architects believe could make it more challenging for top professionals. Previously, No. 13 required a tee shot over the lake.

Months after Justin Thomas shot 25 under to win the 2019 BMW Championship, Medinah announced its intent to overhaul Course Three. Aided by soft course conditions, Thomas torched the venerable venue — once known as a “monster” — to the tune of 27 birdies and two eagles, and he set the course record with a 61 in the third round.

The blood-red leaderboard that year — 27 of the 69 players finished 10 under or better — wasn’t the reason Medinah’s members paid more than $20 million to revamp Course Three.

An aging irrigation system triggered the initial discussions, but those soon evolved into discourse for a more comprehensive project. Course Three’s steady decline in the industry’s rankings was rumored to be a factor — whether big or small — in the undertaking. Once rated as high as 10th in the United States by Golf Digest, Medinah’s flagship course sat 93rd in the publication’s most recent list.

“What we talked about first already was going to be disruptive, so why not take a fresh look on how we can improve the course holistically?” Scimo said of the club’s mindset at the time.

OCM — one of a handful of finalists — sold itself on being different. Cocking and his crew studied Medinah’s history, poring through old photos of the property before presenting its vision to the club’s membership. Like many American courses that have tested the world’s best players, Course Three was defined by narrow fairways, tall trees and thick rough. Simply put, there was redundancy among the holes, especially in the par 3s, three of which played long and directly over water. Two of them — Nos. 13 and 17 — played from elevated tees and with the prevailing south wind.

“We concluded we could make the course more interesting,” Cocking said. “We saw it had great bones. It’s a beautiful property and surprisingly undulating, but it was hard to tell because of the trees and the artificial elevation of tees and greens. We believed we could make holes stand out from each other and make each of them memorable.”

Drawing from its roots (see sidebar on ensuing page), OCM removed trees, added width and contour to the fairways and doubled the short grass throughout the course. OCM also increased the number of bunkers from 70 to 100, scattering them at a range of distances and tighter to the putting surfaces, and re-imagined holes around Lake Kadijah.

“We wanted the golfer to have more strategic options, both off the tee and around the greens,” Cocking said. “Our view is the more a player has to think about a shot, the more challenging it becomes. That’s true for both pros and amateurs.”

Golf course architects Ashley Mead, Geoff Ogilvy and Mike Cocking walk the misted fairways of Medinah's Course Three in advance of their renovation.

Prominent alterations on the front nine involve re-tooling holes that frame the southern edge of the property. OCM ran Nos. 5-7 along the border and introduced a boundary fence and internal out of bounds.

“That section of the course was flat and featureless,” Cocking said. “It was boring.”

The most significant changes come in the closing six holes and feature the lake in a fresh way.

OCM’s rerouting on the final third starts with No. 13, a par 3 that now plays parallel to the lake, instead of over it. The 14th is a shorter par 4, and the old 15th was removed and replaced. The former par-3 17th, which required a long carry over water, is now No. 16, a Cape-style par 4 played diagonally across the lake, asking players if they want to play it safe to the fat part of the fairway or dare to take on more water and go closer to the green. The new par-3 17th goes back south across the hazard, although at an angle, and the finishing hole remains a lengthy, uphill par 4.

“[Medinah] gave us license to go all in on the last six holes,” Cocking said. “We were nervous they might not want to go down that path, and we had doubts and second-guessed ourselves, which is healthy. But I credit (the members) for wanting the best golf course we could give them.”

Feedback from Medinah’s membership has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Moore. Same for PGA Tour officials who have visited the course throughout the process in preparation for the Presidents Cup. The organization’s head architect and agronomist and members of the competition committee all have endorsed Medinah’s new Course Three, according to Scimo.

“We gave the PGA access, but [it] had no say in the design,” Scimo said. “The Tour made helpful suggestions, but OCM had total autonomy. They couldn’t be happier.”

Potts said it’s in Course Three’s — and the membership’s — DNA to stage big-time tournaments, and the Presidents Cup will be the start of a new chapter in that continued tradition. The PGA Championship, now played in May, is seeking sites in 2032 and 2033. The Ryder Cup’s next opening is 2037. The U.S. Open has a hole in 2043, and again in 2045 and 2046. The U.S. Women’s Open has availability in 2037, while the U.S. Amateur is looking for a host in 2028.

“We’ve been in dialogue with all of the major golf bodies,” Moore said. “Let’s just say we are in the mix.”

Most importantly, Medinah is able to take satisfaction in believing it made the right choice in hiring OCM, which delivered a charming course that respects the past with an eye on the future.

“Absolutely, no regrets,” Moore said. “Every day that went by we saw OCM’s vision coming together. There was a romance to their design. The members are proud of the gamble we took.”

Matt Harness is an award-winning freelance writer who writes frequently on golf.

The Beginnings of OCM
OCM is made up of three golf geeks from Australia’s Sandbelt area in the southeastern part of the country. The region is home to noteworthy courses such as Alister MacKenzie-designed Royal Melbourne Golf Club and Kingston Heath, both of which routinely rank among the best in the world. MacKenzie is most famous for Augusta National Golf Club, which he co-designed with Bobby Jones. Kingston Heath will host the 2028 Presidents Cup.

Cocking and Ogilvy lived near one another as kids and competed as juniors on Australia’s elite circuit. Ogilvy went on to a successful professional career. Meanwhile, Cocking took his golf talents to the drawing room. The two kept in touch. They reconnected after Ogilvy turned his attention to design in 2010.

“We didn’t realize how good the courses we were playing in Australia were,” Cocking said. “The firm, fast fairways. The width of holes, the angles. Short grass around greens. There are a variety of options, which makes it more interesting and more challenging for both great and average players. It’s an enjoyable test.”

Ogilvy turned pro in 1998 and joined the PGA Tour in 2001. He won eight times, highlighted by his 2006 U.S. Open victory at Winged Foot Golf Club. Later that year, Ogilvy tied for ninth at the PGA Championship at Medinah. He was one stroke off the lead and tied with Tiger Woods after 36 holes. Woods ran away from the field to win his second major championship at Medinah.

“I remember a long, tough course, with quite a few difficult shots,” Ogilvy said. “My recollections of that week certainly helped us during the planning stages.”

Cocking said Ogilvy’s years of playing on the PGA Tour reinforced his love for the courses of his childhood. Cocking, an accomplished amateur golfer, agreed modern American courses craved more playability.

“Geoff mentioned that a lot of courses on Tour played the same,” Cocking said. “They were long, but soft. It was a driver, wedge contest. All target golf. Not very memorable shots. It didn’t challenge you mentally.”

OCM’s first American job was a redesign of Shady Oaks Country Club in Forth Worth, Texas, a place Ben Hogan called home. Previously, OCM’s work primarily consisted of courses in Australia. Since winning the Medinah venture, the Aussies have been busy. Fall Line Golf Club, roughly 100 miles south of Atlanta’s airport, and Tepetonka Club, around 90 miles west of the Twin Cities, are OCM’s first original layouts in America. Naturally, both properties feature sand foundations.

“All three of us decided our benchmark for design would be the places we played in Melbourne,” Cocking said.
—Matt Harness