Course No.3 at Medinah Country Club

The Championship Course
Designer - Tom Bendelow

Interpreted for LinksLS via APCD by:
John Pineda

 
click on image above for a bigger pic

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MEDINAH #3 Reviews

  from Jim Wood's at the International Players Links Golf Site 

9.7 from John Buesing. Acrobat PDF review here.

92% from Pete Dixon at Links Corner .

You can add your own user review  at Links Corner.

I.                   Introduction

First of all, thank you for downloading my version of Medinah #3.   I started work on this course at around February 2001 and being in the Philippines, I knew that this would be a tough course to build with the limited resources on Medinah.    This was my first APCD project and as expected, halfway thru my course, I felt it wouldn’t be good enough.  I started all over again, but planted few types of trees on the old one and renamed it Kadijah.  Meanwhile, before doing the second version, I collected all my materials, including sattelite pics from terraserver and mapquest, and laid it out slowly but surely.   Soon, the course was taking shape and I was posting some pics on my site (http://firehead.cjb.net).   Some people became interested with the development especially Adam Heili who soon became more than a spectator, suggesting things for the improvement of the course.  There are a lot of things that needs to be tweaked and lots of objects to be added but this could compromise the size.  I guess if you get too detailed with APCD, the size suffers.

One thing that I really wanted to do was the clubhouse.  The clubhouse of Medinah C.C. has much history as its courses so it would be a shame if it was not done. At first the idea of a 3D clubhouse didn’t even enter my mind.   I had a 2d pic added already but I really felt that the clubhouse is part of Medinah’s character and this 2d pic which follows your view wont be good enough.  Hours were spent just trying to figure out how it is to be done .  After a few tries,  I finally got it and the result speaks for itself.  Slowly,  the course was taking shape.  But being a neophyte at APCD, it was good that I kept backups of all the changes I made (no kidding).   So even if the Japanese bug hit me, I lost only a few hours work.  It was tough working with APCD but it was more tough working on it creating a real course.    At one point I thought to myself that it might not be good enough and reading the posts from Linkscorner regarding real life courses I knew that it would be rough sailing.  Nervously, a beta was released at around the first week of July.  I didn’t expect the kind of comments that I received but they were very encouraging.  So after tweaking the course more, changing the panorama, adding the preview hole pictures, changing the name, adding some textures, moving verts and trees, may I present to you,  Medinah C.C. (No.3).

II.                The course

SCREENSHOTS

Par 72

  SCORECARD

Note: for the LS course,  first cut and rough both play as rough characteristic.

The course was done as close as possible using my limited resources.  Some greens may slope more than actual but for Links LS I think it makes the course challenging. Shotmaking is a requirement with this course especially if you hit the rough.  Punch shots will be very useful.  While it has 4 par-5’s they will be very most of them can’t be reached in two.  Doglegs on some par-4’s require maybe a long iron or fairway wood shot then another long iron to the green.  Keeping it on the fairway though will help setup scoring opportunities.  I planted lots of pins around  the greens as well so there will be enough variety.   I attached a recorded round for you to play against but pardon the putting hehe.  Since I started this course,  I haven’t played a lot.  Still shot a 66 though but its on no wind / moderate/medium. 

From Golfonline.Com

"There's nothing like it anywhere in the United States," said Don Larson, a Medinah member since 1975 and general chairman of this week's tournament.

No offense, Augusta. Pardon us, Pebble Beach. But Medinah combines challenging golf with impressive architecture, gorgeous scenery and a history that seems better suited to Hollywood than the PGA.

A bear once lived here. A camel used to visit. And all because in the early 1920s, some members of the Ancient Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine -- yes, that really was the name of their philanthropic group -- wanted a country retreat for their families.

At some courses, trees encroach on the design, undercutting the original architectural features and leaving fairways and greens starved for air, sunlight and water. Not so at this venerable facility, designed in 1925 by Tom Bendelow for the local Shriner's Club.

The No. 3 Course already has been home to U.S. Opens in 1949, 1975 and 1990. Several holes had been altered prior to the last Open to reduce the severity of some doglegs and to create stronger finishing holes. The one major sticking point from the last U.S. Open was that Medinah had three nearly identical par-3s with steel bulkheading along Lake Kadijah. The last of them, the 17th hole, had a new green with a 5 percent back-to-front slope that was simply too steep for modern tournament conditions. That awkward hole was rebuilt in 1996 by Roger Rulewich. He relied upon the same teeing ground but moved the green 30 yards inland and uphill.

III.             The clubhouse

As members of the Medinah Temple -- named for the Muslim holy city of Medina -- they wanted the club to reflect that history in everything from its name to its architecture. So before he drew his blueprints for the clubhouse, designer Richard Schmid spent two years traveling the Middle East and Europe in search of inspiration.

The result is a clubhouse that looks like a smaller version of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The brown- and orange-brick building is three stories high and 104,000 square feet, with towers on the left and right sides. There used to be a minaret, too, but the top was knocked off by lightning and never restored.

The centerpiece of the building is the 60-foot rotunda. While the ceiling looks like a mosaic of cream, blue, orange, black and red tiles, it's actually hand-painted. The walls of the rotunda also are hand-painted, giving them a Byzantine flavor.

"There isn't anybody who walks in there for the first time that doesn't just gasp," Larson said.

IV.                 Easter Eggs

I just had to do it. Sorry to those who would not like these things but they are 3 of them.  Two of them are pretty easy – Me and Michael Jordan in front the clubhouse.  He was invited at the pro-am and asked me to carry his bag J.  The other one is on 16 J

V.              Acknowledgements

Lots of credit is given to Adam Heili who  has been very patient following the development of the course.  Matthew Lilly  for providing me great scans of the yardage book as well as giving information about the course.  Ms. Ruth Kern for her website and inside information on the club (like the planned remodeling soon).  The pictures from her site of the clubhouse area has been invaluable and an inspiration. Martin Norris for hosting the beta. Then a big thanks to the people of Links Corner for the tutorials there and to thanks to Microsoft and their staff for this great game. To Art Patscheck and the unknown designer of Piney Valley for the great sand texture.

Finally, to the beta testers who gave invaluable feedback, Jerry Garlisch , Randal Queen, Martin Norris, Ron Berard, and the rest of the beta team who decided to test this course in spite of its size.  

All rights reserved. For personal use only. © 2001, John"Firehead" Pineda