THE TWIN ORCHARD YEAR END GOLF SALE is coming up soon from November 21 to 23. This is your best chance to get great golf deals and start your holiday shopping in advance of Black Friday. The Mistwood Golf Club on Renwick Road is still open for outdoor play, but soon the transition to the Mistwood Golf Dome will be happening. So come out and enjoy Mistwood before it’s too late- Mistwoodgc.com or (815)-254-3333.
THE GOG BLOG by RORY SPEARS-Director of Content and Creation for Golfers on Golf. Follow Rory on Twitter-X @GogBlogGuy and on Facebook/LinkedIn or Instagram.
Rory Spears alongside the 18th hole of Medinah #3, which reopened for play this past July.
CHICAGO’S FLAGSHIP GOLF PROPERTY is fully back up and running with a new look to it’s famed Course #3.
Golfers on Golf has monitored the progress since the Medinah club members first voted to make the upgrades and the improvements to it’s Top 100 ranked #3 golf course.
What they received is a new fun but challenging in a championship manner golf design. The Australian design firm of OCM (Geoff Ogilvy-2006 U.S. Open champion, Michael Cocking and Ashley Mead) did the redesign after working through the challenges of taking on this project during the height of Covid-19.
The tee shot on 18 requires a water carry, on a hole that runs to the location of the clubs famed flag pole. The flag pole was not moved from it’s site during the renovation.
Golfers are still asking-why the redo.
But the funny thing is that before the 2019 BMW Championship was even in the history books, the low scores of the week had both patrons and media types thinking there would be changes made to the golf course.
All were correct.
The clubs board assembled shortly after the BMW Championship was concluded (won by Justin Thomas at 25 under par-with the help of Lift-Clean and Place), and started asking the question what can we do to make Course #3 better. What was viewed from outside the club, was that Course #3 had become too easy for the games best players. So if another top golf championship was to return to Medinah, Course #3 would have to be made tougher.
Which in part was true-but there was more to the big picture.
Medinah 3’s former hole 10, is still a par-5, but now it’s hole seven.
Course #3 was due for a major infrastructure upgrade. Drainage, bunkers, irrigation and more. So the feeling was, if the club was going to tear up the golf course anyway. Why not complete a renovation at the same time.
Which made sense, or dollars and cents. The cost to renovate and upgrade Course #3 was north of $20 million dollars, and it’s believed to be the most expensive renovation in the history of Chicago area golf. Thomas when informed by Golfers on Golf at the 2022 BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club that a renovation was coming immediately said, “I hope Medinah is not blowing up the golf course because of what I shot.” Thomas was the first PGA Tour player to play Course #3 this past summer after it opened.
So in a casual round of golf, rumor has it Thomas birdied holes 1,2 and 3. Then he mixed some pars, birdies and bogeys for a score of 67. Thomas played from the back tees at 7,564 yards, with a par of 70. But for members and guest play, par is normally 72 from the back tees. Other tees are measured at 7,081, 6,570 and 5,400 yards.
The new par-3 17th hole, runs away from the clubhouse, not towards it as in the past design.
The changes to course #3 are as follows.
New holes are holes 13-18, but while some holes have the same routing corridors, they are now in a different order.
Because the former hole 7 is now hole 10, and the former hole 10 that ran along Lake Street is now hole 7. Holes 8 and 11 have flip-flopped. If Medinah #3 had a previous flaw, it was said that the par-3 holes all looked the same. They don’t anymore, only the par-3 second hole still has it’s old look.
But even the holes that are still the same, are really not the same once you look a little more closely. Because tee boxes have moved, or lengthened. Bunkers have been added or removed, to add strategic shot values. Green complexes have been reshaped with chipping area’s added, and walking paths to the next hole.
Three bunkers guard the new 15th green, that requires an uphill second shot approach.
The fully new-look holes start at 13. But while there is no water carry, there is water right of the hole. New tees do allow the hole to play as short as 118 yards, or blind over a mound from the back tees.
14-15 and 16 are all par-4 holes, and the 16th hole that requires a water carry from the three back sets of tees. Sixteen plays the shortest at 402 yards. The par-3 17th hole has a water carry, but now plays away from the clubhouse and not towards it. It’s also located more towards the center of the golf course, and not right alongside Medinah Road.
OCM’s Michael Cockling stands in a fairway bunker on the 18th hole during the construction phase-summer of 2023.
A short par-5 for members that plays 487 yards is the new 18th hole. It runs west on the property and not towards the famed Medinah Clubhouse.
The tee shot must carry the water and avoid the deep fairway bunkers that border the left side of the fairway.
For the 2026 Presidents Cup the 18th hole will likely be the 15th hole, where many matches in match play conclude. Television will have plenty of say on which holes set up for the best finish.
This year the course (now closed for the year) opened in July, it saw member-only limited walking play. But over the last few weeks, grow-in advanced to a level where carts were allowed out. National golf publications sent raters who had praise for the new design. Their overall opinion has been a positive one. Next year the clubs members will start bringing their guests and the word will spread about how good the new #3 looks.
Next year in 2025-the club will celebrate it’s Centennial, before the President’s Cup arrives the following year. While the current focus is on the Presidents Cup, the next open Ryder Cup date in the USA is 2037. 25 years after the last Ryder Cup at Medinah in 2012. The new Course #3 would make a great site for team golf in both 2026 and 2037.
