Medinah's 2026 Presidents Cup: A Look Back at the Comeback

The 2026 Presidents Cup was the first time the world's best played Medinah Country Club's Course No. 3 since OCM Golf rebuilt it, and it ended in the familiar American win, reached by an unfamiliar route: the United States went into Sunday three points down and won the singles 9.5-2.5 to take the Cup 17-13. Here is how it happened and how the new No. 3 held up. Medinah is private, so the last section points to public courses with tour history that a visitor can play.

The result

The Americans won 17-13 on Sunday, September 27, their 11th straight Presidents Cup, the AP reported. Brandt Snedeker captained the U.S. team. Geoff Ogilvy, whose firm OCM did the redesign, captained the Internationals. It was the 16th edition of the event, and Medinah was the fifth different U.S. venue to host it.

The score hides how close it was. The Internationals led 10.5-7.5 after three days, their largest lead at that stage in the event's history, and needed five points from 12 singles. They got 2.5. PGA Tour's recap called the U.S. singles margin a record for Sunday. The Internationals' only win is still Royal Melbourne in 1998, with a tie in South Africa in 2003, and the next Cup goes to Kingston Heath in Australia in 2028.

How the week turned

Thursday's four-ball went to the U.S., 3-2, as Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns finally won a match together on their fifth try. Friday belonged to the Internationals, who swept all five foursomes matches for a 7-3 lead. The defining shot came at the 18th, where Nick Taylor, after driving into the trees, hit a 9-iron from 151 yards to 2 feet to close out a 1-up win for himself and Corey Conners over Scheffler and Burns.

On Saturday the Americans led every match at some point on the front nine, in both sessions, and still gained only a point. The day ended with Conners holing a 6-foot par putt on the 18th to finish his and Taylor's comeback from 3 down after 10 holes.

Sunday flipped it. Jackson Koivun, a 21-year-old rookie, was 2 down through 10 to Si Woo Kim, the Internationals' top performer that week, and won five of the last eight holes for a 2-up win. Collin Morikawa, 1 down on the 15th green, made a long birdie putt and watched Hideki Matsuyama miss from inside 4 feet; Morikawa won 1 up. Patrick Cantlay holed a birdie putt from nearly 60 feet on the par-3 16th against Adam Scott. The clinching point was Jacob Bridgeman's par on the 18th for a 1-up win over Min Woo Lee. Snedeker, who played on the U.S. team that lost the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah, put it simply: "Medinah has a history of funny things happening."

How OCM's No. 3 played

OCM's redesign, finished in 2024, took out trees, widened every fairway and left the course with about 100 rugged, Golden Age-style bunkers and broad stretches of fescue. The last six holes were rerouted around Lake Kadijah, and a split-rail boundary fence came back on the members' 5th through 7th.

For the Cup, the PGA Tour reordered the holes so the members' 5th became the 1st; LINKS Magazine reported the aim was to get as many matches as possible to the back-nine lake holes. That put the out-of-bounds fence down the left of the first three holes, where hugging it gives the better angle in. GOLF.com reported that Ryan Fox, Si Woo Kim and Koivun all drove out of bounds on the 2nd on Thursday, and Matsuyama played one shot sitting on the top rail. Morikawa said he had never seen anything like it.

The weather worked against the design. Before the matches, Golf Channel reported, Ogilvy said he would prefer the course firmer, and Snedeker said that after ten days of rain it would take a drastic dry-out for No. 3 to play the way it was meant to. The reordered routing paid off anyway. On Sunday the final seven singles matches all reached at least the 17th hole and five went to the 18th, per GOLF.com, and the Cup was settled on the closing stretch.

Medinah in Chicago's tournament history

Tom Bendelow's No. 3 opened in 1928. Before the Presidents Cup it had hosted three U.S. Opens, three Western Opens, the 1999 and 2006 PGA Championships, the 2012 Ryder Cup and the 2019 BMW Championship. The 2012 Ryder Cup is the one that stuck, when Europe came back from 10-6 down to win.

Golf Digest named OCM's work a Transformation of the Year, and No. 3 is No. 74 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 America's 100 Greatest and No. 3 on its 2025-26 Illinois Best in State list. It is a private club in the western suburbs, for members and their guests only, and there is no tee time to book.

Tour history you can play

Cog Hill No. 4 (Dubsdread) in Lemont, in the southwest suburbs, was the PGA Tour's Western Open venue from 1991 to 2006 and hosted the BMW Championship in 2007, 2009-2011 and 2013. From the Black tees it plays 7,554 yards with a 78.0 rating and 153 slope, and the public can book up to 60 days ahead.

TPC Deere Run in Silvis hosts the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic each summer, as it has since 2000; Steve Stricker won three straight there from 2009 to 2011, and Paul Goydos shot 59 in 2010. It is one of the golf trips from Chicago, an overnight or a long day. The two sit first and second on Golfweek's 2026 Best Courses You Can Play list for Illinois.

Inside the city limits, the Port course at Harborside hosted the Champions Tour's 2002 SBC Senior Open, where Bob Gilder beat Hale Irwin in a playoff.

Most Chicagoland courses close or go to limited winter play from about November to March, so check each listing's tee sheet before planning a round.