Photograph by Matt Rouches/Medinah Country Club
Geoff Ogilvy will be plenty occupied the week of the Presidents Cup, Sept. 22–27 at Medinah Country Club. As captain of the International Team, he will have to make countless decisions and attend to a seemingly infinite number of details, big and small, in trying to guide his crew to an upset victory over the Americans.
Ogilvy, though, comes to this Presidents Cup wearing more than one hat. His design firm, OCM Golf, did an extensive and unprecedented renovation of the famed Course No. 3. Along with taking out numerous trees, opening up vistas on the layout and framing fairways with fescue, Ogilvy’s design crew completely transformed Nos. 13 through 18, creating new holes for the closing track. They include two new par 3s and a dramatic par-4 16th hole with a big risk-reward for the pros attempting to drive the green over Lake Kadijah.
The new No. 3 reopened in 2024 to huge acclaim. Golf Digest named Course No. 3 and OCM as winners of its 2025 “Best Transformation of the Year.” Golf Digest’s Derek Duncan called the changes “head-spinning.”
“(OCM altered) the conception of what Medinah was—not a narrow, wooded, restrictive course but one that was broad, dynamic and capable of changing daily,” Duncan wrote.
Then Duncan added, “We’ll find out if the radical transformation helps reestablish No. 3’s reputation as a design ready to do battle with the world’s best when it hosts the 2026 Presidents Cup.”
Indeed, Ogilvy will also be wearing his architect’s hat to learn the answer to that question. The Presidents Cup will be the first time the world’s elite will test the new layout. He is anxious to see how the revisions fare on the big stage.
“Having a match-play event the first time (the pros go there) is really unique,” Ogilvy said. “I'm going to be a very interested observer to see how the work we did plays out when the best golfers in the world are playing on it.”
This will also be the first time Chicago area golf fans will get to see the new layout. For the most part, Course No. 3 has been the venue for hosting the biggest events in golf: three U.S. Opens; two PGA Championships; and the 2012 Ryder Cup. So, it is going to be a new experience for fans who have become familiar with the old layout.
“People notice it right away, right when you drive into the club,” said Casey Brozek, the director of golf at Medinah. “You used to have to drive almost up to the 18th green before you saw it. Now you can see almost the entire course. With all the trees taken out, and the fescue, it creates a different look.”
Brandt Snedeker (pictured below) last played Medinah in 2019 when he finished fifth in the BMW Championship. Now, as the U.S. captain, he is preparing to encounter different challenges for the Presidents Cup.
“The golf course itself is quite dramatically different,” Snedeker said. “Geoff did a fantastic job. It’s not the old tree-lined, straight, long golf course with rough. There's a lot more curves and a lot more subtlety to the golf course now. The routing is totally changed. It's going to be interesting.”
There will be a big change right off the bat that has nothing to do with OCM’s work. Instead of matches beginning on what is No. 3’s first hole near the clubhouse, the opening hole has been moved to the fifth. The PGA Tour, which runs the Presidents Cup, wants to create a big amphitheater with thousands of fans watching those first tee shots, and there wasn’t enough room to do that at the traditional No. 1.
Another big reason is that the PGA Tour wants to make sure the newly-shaped last six holes play a big factor in all the matches. Typically, matches only get to No. 18 about 30% of the time. And even by the 16th hole, many are already all but decided.
As a result, in the Presidents Cup, holes 13 through 18 now will play as Nos. 8 through 13. The hope is they will produce plenty of drama.
“Usually, the turning point in a match is between 10 through 14, or somewhere in there,” Brozek said. “That is right where the six new holes are for us.”
From a design perspective, it is fitting that the matches will open on the fifth hole. The hole encapsulates much of OCM’s mission with their work on Medinah.
Ogilvy calls their work “a blend between restoration and renovation.”
“There’s quite a lot of renovation out there, but there's a few aspects that sort of hint back to the early days of the course,” he said.
Previously, for right-handed players on the par 5, Brozek said, “You pretty much had to hook it off the planet” to go out of bounds. OCM found old pictures from the 1930s showing a fence that ran down the left side of the fairway. So OCM decided to replicate what Ogilvy calls “a retro fence” to create a hazard for errant drives to the left.
The hole will play as a par 4 between 480 and 500 yards for the Presidents Cup. Ogilvy says players will need to test the left side and the fence with their drives if they want a good line to the green with their second shots to go for birdie.
“It’s going to be a fascinating first tee shot to watch how it unfolds,” Ogilvy said. “In some ways, the guy who has the honor has the disadvantage, because if he hits it out of bounds, he's kind of handed the guy the hole straight away.”
A similar dynamic will be in play for Medinah’s 16th hole, which will be the 11th hole in the Presidents Cup. OCM created a drivable par 4 with the tee box situated from where the tee for the old No. 17 par 3 used to be, with a green diagonally across on the other side of Lake Kadijah. Do the players go for the green from the tee and risk rinsing their drives in the lake, or do they play it safe and set up a short wedge into the green?
“It's going to be fascinating to watch,” Ogilvy said. “Players in general, have a hard time laying up. They want to go for things. And this hole is going to really encourage them. They have to take a big shot over the water. There will be a lot of drama there.”
Requiring players to make decisions is the goal of OCM’s work at Medinah, Ogilvy said. He believes the best courses have holes where you can either make eagles or double bogeys, depending on the choices made and their execution.
Ogilvy can’t wait to see how it all plays out.
“I feel like it's going to ask some tough questions,” Ogilvy said. “The courses that ask tough questions usually have enjoyable results to watch and play. It’s going to be fun.”
Ed Sherman is a former Chicago Tribune golf writer who is a frequent contributor to Chicago District Golfer.
The U.S. team definitely will have home-course advantage at Medinah. But is there such a thing as a team having “home designer” advantage?
This year’s Presidents Cup presents what is believed to be a first in the history of team competition at the highest level of golf. This will be the first time a team captain also was part of a recent major renovation for the course.
International Team captain Geoff Ogilvy’s design firm of OCM Golf orchestrated significant changes in No. 3, which reopened in 2024.
U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker thinks Ogilvy’s “intimate knowledge” of the course can provide the Internationals with an edge.
“He has his fingerprints all over it,” Snedeker said. “He knows it better than anybody is going to know it. That's something we're going to have to deal with.”
Ogilvy, though, contends any advantage won’t last long once the American team starts playing practice rounds before the event.
“I think it's an advantage when we turn up on Monday (of Presidents Cup week),” Ogilvy said. “But what touring professionals have over most other golfers is they can learn a golf course really quickly. I think by the time we tee off on Thursday, anything that I did to help out the players with what (OCM) did and how we were hoping people would play the course, I imagine that the U.S. team will have it worked out by then. There may be a little advantage pre-tournament, but by the time we get to Thursday morning, it will be nullified.”
—Ed Sherman
