Tiger: Redesigned Cog Hill fit for a major -- or the Games

By Steve Elling | September 9, 2009

LEMONT, Ill. -- Perhaps the only surprise is that he didn't start humming the Olympics theme song.

World No. 1 Tiger Woods got his first look at the rebuilt Cog Hill No. 4 course Wednesday and proclaimed it worthy of hosting not only a future U.S. Open, but the 2016 Olympic Games.

Then again, Woods has won four times and finished second twice in his career at the so-called Dubsdread Course, so he doubtlessly sees possible golfing gold in his future, if it comes to that.

Cog Hill spent $5.2 million to redesign the course, which this week is hosting the third event in the FedEx Cup series, the $7.5 million BMW Championship. Rees Jones, who has tweaked a slew of venerable courses over the years either in advance of hosting major championships or as a means of securing them, handled the redesign.

The idea behind the expenditure was to put the public facility on the radar screen of the USGA and the IOC, a powerful alphabet soup of sports organizations. The U.S. Open hasn't been played in Chicago area since 2003 at Olympia Fields and the next available Open date is in 2017. That's the year after another potential bellwether event might be taking place in the area, in theory.

Along with Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro, Chicago is bidding to host the 2016 Olympics. An announcement on the host site is expected Oct. 2 in Copenhagen.

Woods, who won the BMW title in 2007, the last time the tournament was played at Cog Hill, gave the venue a nice endorsement as an Olympics site after his pro-am round. Granted, it's all an exercise in speculation at this point.

Twice over, in fact. On Oct. 9, golf will learn whether it will be added as a medal sport for the 2016 games. Still, when Woods backs a cause, it often leads directly to "effect."

"I think it would be great," he said. "I think you would have to have it on a public venue. I don't think you could have it at a country club."

Woods learned the game on hardscrabble tracks in Southern California, playing with his dad on municipal layouts and military courses.

"I think you'd have to have it at a public venue just because of what the nature of the Olympics is all about," he continued. "Certainly, this golf course is stand alone in public venues here in the Chicago area.

"I don't know another golf course that could rival this one as far as difficult, a public course."

That will probably cause a few shivers at Medinah, where Woods has won a pair of PGA Championships, or Olympia Fields, which was frequently panned after hosting the Open six years ago. Both are private clubs that presumably would be on the list of candidates if the IOC adds golf and Chicago gets the host nod. Olympia Fields would love to host another Open, as well.

Jones has redesigned big-league venues such as Torrey Pines, Hazeltine, Medinah, Congressional and Bethpage Black. The green complexes at Dubsdread were completely blown up and rebuilt with a subsurface drainage system.

"Yeah, the golf course is certainly playing different," Woods said. "It's a lot longer, the greens are much more difficult, the bunkers are a lot deeper. It's going to be a great test. If they play it all the way back, it'll be tough."

On paper, the par-71 course measures a whopping 7,616 yards. The BMW, formerly the Western Open, also has serious amount of history on its side that should help bolster its case to serve as a host site. The Western Open dates to 1899 and at one point was considered one of the game's major championships.

After their first glances, Cog Hill certainly has the teeth to host the big boys, and if the setup gets overly dialed up, scores could soar.

"They could have us shoot anything they want out there," Padraig Harrington said.