MEDINAH, IL. – The first golf tournament I ever attended was on Medinah’s No. 3 course. My mother took me to the 1962 Western Open in hopes of stimulating my interest in the sport. She succeeded.
I returned to Medinah many times though nearly 60 years of writing about golf for various news outlets. That’s not unusual, given that Medinah No. 3 has hosted three Western Opens, two PGA Championships, three U.S. Opens and a Ryder Cup.
Never, however, has the course hosted an event like this week’s Presidents Cup. It matches 12-player teams from the U.S. against an International unit with players from around the world with the exception of Europe. So far it’s been probably the most onesided rivalry in all of sports. The U.S. holds a 13-1-1 edge, the lone Internationals’ win coming 28 years ago and the teams played to the tie in 1998.
No. 3 was originally designed by Thomas Bendelow in 1928 and it’s been renovated several times over the years. I’ve played most of those versions, but I hardly recognized any of the old ones during my walk through the front nine during Thursday’s first day of the four-day competition.
The most interesting part of the current course is that the architectural work was done by the Australian firm OCM, and the O in that title belongs to Geoff Ogilvy. Hence, the site of this year’s Presidents Cup was designed by the captain of the visiting team.
Does that matter? Probably not, but Ogilvy is hopeful.
“Clearly winning for the first time – or first time in a very long time – is most difficult than winning all the time,’’ said Ogilvy. “But we’re getting closer all the time.’’
U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker downplayed his team’s chances.
“Just because these last times that we’ve been successful doesn’t mean we’ll be successful this time,’’ said Snedeker. We’ll see about that.
The OCM renovation resulted in six new holes – Nos. 13-18 in the present setup. The renovation included an increase in bunkers from 70 to 117 and a major alteration of the hole rotation. That rotation was additionally changed for the Presidents Cup.
OCM completed its work in late 2024 and it was triggered by concerns No. 3 was easy after Justin Thomas – one of the U.S. players on this Presidents Cup team – shot a 61 en route to a 25-under par 263 for 72 holes in winning the 2019 BMW Championship. That had been the last big event at Medinah prior to the Presidents Cup, and nine players in this Presidents Cup played in that FedEx Cup Playoff event.
Thursday’s opening day was marked by a rousing opening ceremony around the new No. 1 tee – the biggest in the history of the competition with seating for about 5,000. Jim Cornelison gave one of rousing renditions of the National Anthem with three helicopters supporting him from above.
More plane traffic from nearby O’Hare continued throughout the day as the U.S. team, clad in blue shirts and khaki pants, and the Internationals, in white shirts and black pants, began their battle.
Tournament organizers are expecting 30,000 per day, and the first crowd was unwieldy in the early holes as spectators in the walking-only crowd scrambled for the best viewing spots. Those became more available as the gallery thinned out as the day progressed.
Most unusual touch was the first tee shots before the big gallery. Many of the balls seemed attracted to a sewer cap in the middle of the fairway.
Thursday’s play was just five best ball matches. The next three days will be more indicative of whether the Internationals can actually spring an upset. There’ll be five more matches, at alternate shot, on Friday, two sessions encompassing eight matches on Saturday and 12 singles matches on Sunday.
