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The Gog Blog by Rory Spears, Editor and Director of Content. Follow Rory on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter @GogBlogGuy.
The Medinah Country Club, a home to three classic golf courses.
Medinah, one of the classic country clubs in all of the world. What they do makes a statement in the golf industry.
In the fall the club will start yet another course improvement plan, this time on it’s Course No.2.
Just a few years back, Medinah made improvements on it’s championship course 3, in advance of the largest Ryder Cup in the events history. Rees Jones got the call to oversee changes to the short par 4, 15th hole, some tree removal and upgrades of several greens. No sooner did the champagne stop flowing in the winning Ryder Cup European Team locker room, architect Tom Doak and his team started tearing up Medinah’s Course No.1. That course reopened last summer and the members are enjoying it. Now phase three gets underway with the restoration of architect Tom Bendelow’s course 2. There aren’t many original Bendelow’s left in circulation. Medinah No.2 is one of them.
Medinah’s Director of Grounds, Curtis Tyrell.
As a result classic courses like this one need to get restored, not renovated by some architect who wants to put his stamp on the project.
That won’t be the case here, as Medinah’s Director of Grounds Curtis Tyrell will oversee the project. The consultant will again be Jones.
Course No.2 has been known over the years as the ladies course, in recent years that hasn’t been the case. Men enjoy playing it, and the member families along with their kids do too. Which is why when the course reopens for the 2017 golf season, there will be some new improvements for the junior golfers who play out there.
The 18th hole on Medinah Course No.2.
This fall the work continues, and that’s because in a small way the work has already started.
The club did some improvements and gave the members a little taste of what the new picture will look like, when they updated the the 8th hole. The green and bunker sand have already been changed.
The white sand that now sits on courses 1 and 3, will soon rest in the bunkers of course 2. Some trees will come down to make the golf course a little more playable, the junior tee’s will go in.
The new look on the 8th hole.
The plan that worked so well on course 1, of getting the work done and letting the course settle into the following year, will be put in place again. Course 2 closes this fall, it will be back in play come 2017.
Jones has some old photographs to work with, and his team will study them to help in the restoration. Tyrell talks about some of the things that those pictures show, how features have been lost over the years. Some of them will return now.
Click here to listen to Curtis Tyrell’s Interview with BIG 3 Partners Len Ziehm and Rory Spears.
Medinah No.2, will be another great piece to the Medinah Country Club when it reopens, it’s last major event was the Illinois Patriot Education Fund golf outing this past week.