Medinah After the Renovation: A Wider Fairway Isn't Easier, It's Just Harder Somewhere Else

One afternoon in April 2026, at a course on the edge of Do Son, I stood on the tee of a 412-yard par-4 and spent nearly four minutes deciding where to hit. To the left, the fairway opened wide but a mound blocked half the green. To the right, a narrower strip forced a carry over a bunker at roughly 235 yards. My playing partner, a six-handicap, waved his club: "It's wide, just swing freely." I took driver left. Found the fairway. Made bogey.

That memory stayed with me long enough that when Medinah Country Club unveiled the OCM Golf renovation of Course No. 3, I went back through the design material to answer one question: does wider mean easier?

Medinah is not a course of comfortable history. Course No. 3 saw Tiger Woods win the PGA Championship in 2026 and 2026, saw Team Europe overturn Team USA at the 2026 Ryder Cup, and saw Justin Thomas win the 2026 BMW Championship. In late September 2026, the Presidents Cup returns here.

That history is exactly why the renovation deserves a proper look. OCM Golf — the design group of Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Clayton and Mike Cocking — did not modernise Medinah by stretching it or planting more trees. They did the opposite: removed trees, opened corridors, restored lost width, and created several distinct routes off the tee on the same hole.

The consequence lands squarely on the tee box. On a tight parkland course, trees either side do the advising for free: there is one line, miss it and you lose a ball, and the golfer's brain gets a rest. At the renovated Medinah, nobody advises you. There are three or four options, and every option carries its own price.

This is where most viewers misread course design.

The quality of a tee shot is not about finding the fairway; it is about choosing the right line and the right level of risk.

In modern golf statistics, that category is Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. It does not count fairways hit — it measures the expected value of the position left behind. A driver in the fairway that leaves a terrible angle into the green can be worse than a driver slightly right that opens up the whole green.

What separates a good golfer from a great one is not swing technique but four numbers carried in the head: carry distance, dispersion pattern, distance to trouble, and club consistency.

Tour players know exactly how far they carry the ball, how wide their normal dispersion is, and how much bunker they can challenge. That is why two players of equal standard can pick two completely different lines off the same tee and both be right.

At the renovated Medinah, the gap between the safe line and the aggressive line is rarely 10 or 15 yards. On a long par-4 it can reach 30 to 40 yards of remaining distance, plus a meaningfully different angle into the green. That is the trade: how many yards do you surrender to remove how much risk?

And this is where Strokes Gained: Approach becomes a dependent variable. Whether an approach shot is easy or hard is largely decided before the golfer lifts the club — it is decided when the tee line is chosen. I once sat down after a round to log every approach, and found something uncomfortable: most of my bogeys did not come from bad approach shots, but from well-struck approach shots played from the wrong angle. The second shot is poor not because of the hands, but because the eyes chose wrong on the first.

This is also where the fairway-hit statistic reveals its deceptive nature. A fairway hit on the wrong side of the hole can be worth less than a fairway miss on the right side. The statistic counts outcomes, not consequences.

Now to the counter-intuitive part, which I consider the biggest blind spot for viewers and amateurs alike.

The popular belief: wide courses are easy. The reality is the reverse. When a design offers multiple routes, the difficulty does not disappear — it moves from execution to decision. On a narrow course you win or lose with your hands. On a wide course like Medinah, you win or lose before the club touches the ball.

And here is something few want to hear: width is not a gift to golfers. It is a product built for tournaments and television. More routes mean more varied outcomes, more highlight moments, more argument. Designers do not widen a course so you can breathe; they widen it so the event has more stories.

The biggest loser in the era of width is not the short hitter. It is the hesitant player. The man who stands on the tee, sees three options, changes his mind twice, and then hits a half-committed shot straight down the empty space between the routes — that is the worst shot a wide course can produce.

I know that feeling in my bones. The fall of 2026 did not stop me — it redirected the whole lane I was running in. I went down at the 350-metre mark of a 400-metre semi-final because I was running on instinct: changing rhythm, changing stride, changing tactics mid-race. My coach told me plainly that I lacked discipline. He was right. A 400-metre runner does not pick a lane mid-race, just as a golfer should not pick a tee line three seconds after planting the peg.

From a failed starting block to the commentary booth: every scar is a map. Every number is capable of lying; my job is to catch it in the act.

The real question for Vietnamese golfers preparing to watch the 2026 Presidents Cup at Medinah is not "can I hit that line", but "if I miss, where does the ball end up". A wide course does not punish you with trees. It punishes you with the choices you never dared to commit to.