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THE GOG BLOG BY RORY SPEARS, Director of Content and Creation for Golfers on Golf. Follow Rory on Twitter @GogBlogGuy or connect Facebook/LinkedIn/Instagram.

MEDINAH COUNTRY CLUB is regarded by many as the flagship golf club for the Chicago area.

So it’s news when the club takes major steps, in making major improvements.

Currently if you have driven past the club it’s hard not to notice that something major is going on. So when one looks over the fence, or stands under the archway at the main gate. It’s hard not have that Oh-My moment.

IT DIDN’T take long after the 2019 BMW Championship was complete, for discussions to begin regarding a new Course #3. During the championship as the worlds best players went lower and lower into red numbers, the fans and press center was buzzing with comments about what Medinah would do to it’s famed #3 course.

Justin Thomas won with a score of 25 under par. “25 under par” were the cries of golf fans and media, that’s not supposed to happen on Medinah 3. But it did. But as Thomas said during an interview at last years BMW Championship, “the conditions were perfect that week for low scoring.” Toss in some lift clean and place assistance from the PGA Tour, and games best golfers will tear apart any course.

Medinah didn’t wait long to create a committee that would ask, “how can our championship golf course be better than it is.”

But what emerged was the reality that all golf courses face at some point. Which is the need to replace or upgrade it’s aging infrastructure.

So when the cost of rebuilding the drainage, irrigation, the watering systems could run as high as 15 million. Why not spend a little more and get your self a new golf course. So no Justin Thomas, Medinah is not blowing up the golf course because you shot 25 under par.

Golf courses and private golf clubs are changing what they offer customers, members and guests. Medinah Country Club is no different. Golf courses are changing, practice area’s are changing, pools are getting bigger, Tennis is getting replaced by Pickleball. Banquet rooms are becoming rooms where members go for a workout on a stationary bike or a treadmill.

As a result, Medinah has gone all-in on a new golf course, that surrounds many of the recent improvements to the club. The routing adds a small (less than 100 yards) amount of yardage, it’s closing holes around the water will require new challenges for good scores. While some golfers always hate to lose the golf course they had, the argument can be made that the new look Medinah #3 might be the best routing to date.

The beginning of the process to upgrade #3, hit a bump in the road. A big bump called Covid-19.

Architects were being interviewed on zoom, or touring the golf course wearing masks.

One group that really seemed behind the 8-Ball was OCM. OCM stands for Ogilvy, Cockling and Mead, the Australian golf design firm that had not done much work in America, other than a project down in Texas. So enter 2006 U.S. Open Champion Geoff Ogilvy, Michael Cocking, and Ashley Mead, who tossed their hat into the ring to land the Medinah project against tough competition. But what Cocking calls amazing, is that OCM even got permission to leave Australia from the government during the height of Covid-19, to return to America and take a first hand look at Medinah.

At the time the only thing OCM had going for it, was that 14 years earlier, Ogilvy had played there in the 2006 PGA. So he had first hand knowledge of the property, and saw the course play during a major championship week. But even Ogilvy didn’t know much about the changes architect Rees Jones made for the 2012 Ryder Cup. Other than some tree removal was completed.

OCM knew they needed to create something different to have a chance in getting the project. So they did. The video presentation created online, gave the clubs committee and members a new and unique way to see it’s championship golf course. They kept their fingers crossed as the vote passed to hire-OCM. Then pass the membership vote to redo the course, in the way the OCM master plan presented the changes.

When asked if OCM knew about the one minor knock Course #3 had, which was that the par-3s looked and played alike. Cocking says,” yes definitely. Because if you were first building a course on the Course #3 site. You would use the the lake and water in a different way. Plus the course was lacking a short-par 4 hole, a popular feature these days.”

COCKING says that the “heavy lifting” in the new design, is more on back-nine of the course. But that the front nine will see it’s share of improvements as well.

One change that stands out immediately, is that the 18th hole is no longer running alongside the driveway when one drives in towards the clubhouse.

The new look 18th hole now runs East-to-West (towards Medinah Road and not the clubhouse). One’s tee shot must carry the water on 18, and then avoid multiple really deep fairway bunkers.

So what was the 18th fairway, is now home to both a new 5-hole short course. Plus a large new “Himalayas” style putting green.

Work is full steam ahead on the short course (L), while the grading has been done on the new putting course (R).

The 16th hole from the tee box of the old 17th hole, runs over the water and then alongside of it. 17 now plays over the water, but not towards the clubhouse, but away from it.

CLICK HERE to hear the full interview with OCM’s Michael Cocking-his first on site at Medinah Country Club.

Cocking says that if all goes well with weather and with the grow-in process, the course could reopen in June of 2024. Medinah #3 will host the Presidents Cup in fall of 2026. Where fans that attend in 2026, will have to adjust to new hole routings. Ones they didn’t see in 2012 at the Ryder Cup or in 2019 at the BMW Championship.