Only a few weeks after Medinah Country Club officially opened its wholly redesigned No. 3 Course, Justin Thomas—the man, ahem, responsible for bulldozing the famed original Tom Bendelow layout—went about trying to tear the new one apart.
And he was succeeding. Alarmingly so.
“We played from the tips, and it was amazing to watch,” said Ryan Potts, the Medinah member who accompanied Thomas for that casual round just after Labor Day in 2024. “The greens weren’t that fast yet, but he starts out with a 30-footer for birdie on the first hole, hit it to 10 feet on the second hole, made it, then made a 40-footer on the third hole for birdie. He chipped in twice after a bogey, and I was like, ‘Oh God, we spent $26 million and he’s going to shoot 60 again.’”
For the record, Thomas had blistered the No. 3 Course for a 61 in the third round of the 2019 BMW Championship and posted a very sobering 25-under 263 total and three-stroke victory over Patrick Cantlay. But he couldn’t duplicate that effort on the new course designed by Geoff Ogilvy and his team at OCM. He shot “only” a 67, establishing the early course record.
Asked about that initial round, Thomas could only grin and offer a playful reply. “Yeah, I had to let up,” he said. “I didn’t want them feeling bad about changing the course.”
A two-time winner of the PGA Championship, Thomas probably knows the reimagined No. 3 Course better than anyone on the U.S. team facing the International contingent in the 16th Presidents Cup, which begins Thursday. He has made twice as many visits to Medinah, including a Labour Day round with Potts, K-Tee Kelly, a Medinah member who last week made it through the first stage of the DP World Tour qualifying, and Eric Burge, a former University of Illinois golfer. The fourball match went to the team of Thomas and Burge, 3 and 1.
So, Thomas already has that under his belt.
[Photo: Michael Reaves] Justin Thomas and Jackson Koivun are going out together Thursday in a fourball match during the opening session of the Presidents Cup at Medinah.
Ranked 25th in the world, Thomas will pair with 21-year-old rookie Jackson Koivun in the third fourball match Thursday, an unsurprising development given that Thomas, making his fourth appearance, has as much experience as any American and carries a 10-3-2 record, including 6-0-0 in fourball. They’ll take on Canada’s Corey Conners and Nico Echavarria of Colombia.
“It’s very different. It seems like there’s a mixture of keeping the bones of the course … [and] some totally new holes,” said Thomas, 33, who also has played in the Ryder Cup four times for the U.S. “Obviously, the routing is very different. It makes it extremely difficult to talk about the course amongst the team because we can’t figure out what hole is what based off of the previous design, the actual routing and the current routing. But, man, it has a chance, especially at this time of year, to play really cool. I think visually it looks awesome.”
Thomas showed a bit of exasperation when he was asked about the process by which Medinah’s membership decided—after being awarded the Presidents Cup—to change the championship course on which he won and has been the site of victories by Hale Irwin, Tiger Woods and Gary Player.
Many members have mentioned to Thomas that he is the reason for the investment in wiping the slate clean at No. 3. Well, maybe not many.
“Literally all of them,” he corrected. “Oh, yeah. I’ve gotten in many conversations. I thought it was funny at first, and I didn’t really find it that amazing the last couple years. I told them, ‘I appreciate what you’re saying, kind of, sort of, but I really hope as a membership you didn’t completely tear up a golf course because the best players in the world came in and played really well on it.’”
Actually, what sealed the fate of the original course was bomber’s exhibition that Kelly, who has played some events on the Korn Ferry Tour, and a few other low-handicap members put on to show how they could overpower the tree-lined layout by simply hitting over the treetops to set up countless wedge approach shots. Meanwhile, most members had to steer shots between the corridors.
“It played easier for long hitters and professionals and harder for members, and that’s the opposite of what you’d want,” said Ogilvy, who was the natural choice to captain the International team this week after three terms as an assistant and, of course, his knowledge of the course he helped create.
Not only is Thomas, one of Brandt Snedeker’s six captain’s pick, the most well-prepared player on the American side to take on Medinah No. 3, but it continues a pattern of commitment that the Kentucky native exhibits for team match play events. Prior to the 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National in Paris, Thomas was the only American to compete in the French Open at the Ryder Cup course and went on to be the leading scorer for the U.S., going 4-1 in a five-point U.S. loss to Europe.
[Photo: Keyur Khamar] Justin Thomas pumps his fist and celebrates his victory on the 18th green during the final round of the BMW Championship at Medinah.
“Everyone prepares differently. Everyone gets comfortable in their own way. I’d say he just … he hates losing more than others,” said teammate Xander Schauffele. “You know, it gets to him. And because of that, you see that fire. I hate it, too. I try my absolute hardest, but JT, he gets up. He gets up in big moments. And even if he doesn’t have his best stuff, he convinces himself in the morning that he’s going to win that match, and he’s done it time and time again. That’s why he’s here.”
Left off the winning 2024 team by captain Jim Furyk, Thomas has some extra motivation this week. He didn’t like being left at home as the U.S. won for a 10th straight time in Montreal. But at the same time, he wants to win and help the U.S. team win or there is no sense in his attendance. Then again, his passion and determination could never be seen as anything but a plus. There was a reason playing captain Tiger Woods chose Thomas as his partner in a pair of doubles wins in the 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia.
“I gave Jim a hard time plenty about it,” Thomas admitted. “I’m like, there’s nothing personal. I told Keegan [Bradley, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain] last year, I told Sneds, I never want to be on these teams if the players on the team and the captains on the team don’t think that I make the team better. I don’t care if I’m the seventh-ranked in the points and I’m whatever I am. If I do not make the team better in any way, then I should not be on the team.
“I firmly do believe that, and I think that’s just how it was in Montreal. But you do take it for granted. I think there for a little while, I just assumed … it also kind of makes you grow appreciation for guys like Tiger and Phil [Mickelson] and Rory [McIlroy] and the [Ian] Poulters and the [Lee] Westwoods that just did it every year, and it was like, you just assumed that that’s how it was. However many years I play golf, that’s how often I’m going to be on these teams. [But] that’s just not the case. The talent, how deep it is, and you have to really, really play well to earn your way on these teams. I respect that. I understand that. I always want to earn my way on these teams.”
He certainly deserves to be here this week at Medinah. There are at least 26 million reasons why he just couldn’t be left at home.
