Medinah Country Club: Course No. 1

Medinah Country Club's Course One is the facility's most extensively redesigned layout, originally crafted by Tom Bendelow in the mid-1920s and transformed by Tom Doak between 2012 and 2014 in a project that removed nearly 800 trees to restore strategic corridors and introduce Doak's characteristic greens complexity. The par-71 course plays to nearly 6,900 yards and challenges golfers with generous fairways that contrast with demanding, undulating putting surfaces.

Medinah Country Club is one of the great stage-setting venues in American championship golf — a club founded on an improbable premise, built with theatrical ambition, and refined over a century into a facility that has hosted more major professional championships than nearly any other course in the Midwest. The club was founded in 1924 by members of the Medinah Shriners, a fraternal organization affiliated with Chicago's Medinah Temple. The Shriners purchased several parcels of land in an area then known as Meacham, in DuPage County northwest of Chicago, with the ambition of creating a country retreat that would befit their organization's elaborate aesthetic sensibilities. They engaged Tom Bendelow — the Scottish-born designer who had laid out East Lake, Olympia Fields, and dozens of other American courses during the early 1900s — to design three golf courses. Course No. 1 opened in September 1925, and Course No. 3, originally designed for the club's female members, was completed in 1928. Course No. 3 underwent a fundamental transformation in subsequent decades. The USGA selected it to host the 1949 U.S. Open, and in preparation the club made significant alterations to toughen Bendelow's relatively accessible original design. Cary Middlecoff won that championship.

The course was modified again before the 1975 U.S. Open, won by Lou Graham in a playoff over John Mahaffey. The 1990 U.S. Open arrived at Medinah with another redesigned iteration of Course No. 3 — Hale Irwin claimed the title at the age of 45, becoming the oldest U.S. Open champion in history. The PGA Championship has visited twice, in 1999 — when Tiger Woods won his second major title — and 2006, when Tiger Woods won his eleventh. The 2012 Ryder Cup placed Medinah at the center of among the dramatic moments in the competition's history. The United States held a commanding 10-6 lead heading into the final-day singles, seemingly on the verge of an easy victory. Europe responded with among the remarkable sustained comebacks in the event's history, winning eight of the twelve singles matches to reclaim the cup 14.5 to 13.5.

The European team's final-day performance — which included Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, and Ian Poulter winning crucial matches — became known as the "Miracle at Medinah" and is regularly cited as among the Ryder Cup's defining moments. Between championships, Course No. 3 was comprehensively redesigned by Roger Packard in 1986 to address modern playing demands. Rees Jones made further modifications in the years preceding the 2012 Ryder Cup, including extending the course to 7,631 yards and reconfiguring several greens and bunker complexes to produce the strategic test demanded by the world's best players in match-play competition. The lake that defines the character of the 13th, 14th, and 15th holes — a Medinah landmark visible from the golf course, the clubhouse, and the property's elaborate Moorish-influenced architecture — remains the course's most distinctive visual element. Medinah's Course No. 3 plays to a par of 72 and measures over 7,600 yards at championship configuration. Its combination of length, lakeside drama, and a clubhouse setting of extraordinary architectural ambition makes it among the recognizable private clubs in the United States. The club continues to hold a position near the top of Golf Digest's rankings for Illinois, and its championship history is matched by few private courses in the American Midwest. Course No. 1 serves a different role within the Medinah complex from Course No. 3. Where No. 3 is reserved primarily for championship use and high-profile member events, No. 1 functions as the everyday member course — more accessible in layout, more frequently played, and designed to accommodate the full range of member skill levels in a way that the championship course cannot.

Tom Bendelow's original design was substantially revised by a Tom Doak redesign completed in 2014, which removed approximately 800 trees to open new playing corridors, improve drainage, and infuse the course with more strategic complexity and visual clarity. Doak's characteristic approach — wide, uncluttered fairways leading to boldly contoured greens — transformed Course No. 1 from a secondary member facility into a course of genuine architectural distinction. Medinah's extraordinary clubhouse — built in a Moorish architectural style to reflect the Shriners' aesthetic sensibilities, featuring a distinctive dome visible from the surrounding fairways — gives the property a physical grandeur that matches the scale of its championship ambitions. The club's combined history of two U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, and the 2012 Ryder Cup makes Medinah Country Club among the championship-tested facilities in Illinois, and the combination of Courses No. 1 and No. 3 gives its membership access to two genuinely distinct and high-quality rounds of golf. Course No. 1's relationship to Course No. 3 within the Medinah Country Club membership experience creates a natural comparison that typically resolves in No. 3's favor — the U.S. Open venue invariably attracts more outside attention. But members with the perspective of repeated play on both layouts frequently argue that Course No. 1's more intimate, less tournament-configured character makes it the more enjoyable round, a course designed for the pleasure of its members rather than the demands of professional competition.