This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.
The 3M Open
Purse: $8.3M
Winner's Share: $1.494M
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the Winner
Location: Blaine, Minn.
Course: TPC Twin Cities
Yardage: 7,431
Par: 71
2023 winner: Lee Hodges
Tournament Preview
The PGA Tour season has zipped along, hasn't it?
Maybe it's because tournaments began in January, and not in September as in years past. The majors are over and there are just two events left in the regular season, with a one-week break in between them for the Olympics. Then there's the three-week playoffs. And that'll be that before Labor Day.
The Tour implemented some changes last year to the playoff structure and how the top 125 players retain their cards for next season. It's worth a little refresher here, because it could affect the players you pick in your DFS lineups for the next couple of tournaments.
Only the top 70 in the FedExCup Standings will make the playoffs. It used to be 125. Players have this week's 3M Open and the Aug. 8-11 Wyndham Championship to qualify. But the top 125 in the standings, which for so long was intertwined with the Wyndham and the end of the regular season, won't be determined until the conclusion of the so-called FedEx Cup Fall, a seven-event stretch that ends just before Thanksgiving.
Last year, that change caused some consternation, because players in the top 125 after the Wyndham, but outside the top 70, were guaranteed nothing at that time. Jimmy Walker was front and center in his unhappiness because he was inside the top 125 after the Wyndham -- but, after the fall events, he had fallen outside of threshold and lost his card.
The newness of the setup didn't help pacify Walker or anyone else. Now that there's been a year to get acclimated, no one will be surprised with what happens between now and November.
But for now, the scramble to get into the top 70 and the playoffs, and all that guaranteed cash even for playing in just one of the three playoff events, is very real.
It is under that backdrop that the field of 156 will tee it up this week at TPC Twin Cities for the sixth edition of the 3M Open.
While the focus may be on the middle and back end of the field jockeying for playoff position, the top guys also have much to play for. If they do well over the next two events, it's possible they could guarantee themselves three playoff events, which means a berth in the Tour Championship and all the 2025 perks that go to those 30 golfers.
The 2022 3M winner Tony Finau, Sahith Theegala, Akshay Bhatia, Sam Burns and Keegan Bradley are the highest-ranked guys in the field. But the headliners might very well be some other guys. First, a lot of eyeballs will be on those who were so prominent last week at Royal Troon, notably Billy Horschel and Thriston Lawrence. Then there are the young guns making an immediate impact -- Nick Dunlap (last week's Barracuda winner), Michael Thorbjornsen (Stanford alum), Luke Clanton (still at Florida State) and Neal Shipley (Ohio State alum), plus Ben James (Virginia junior) and Ben Warian, who just played his senior season at Minnesota and is in on a sponsor's invite. Santiago de la Fuente, who as reigning Latin America Amateur champion played in three majors this year, will make his pro debut.
Oh, and the defending champion Lee Hodges deserves a mention, right?
To clearly illustrate how things work under this new playoff landscape, Hodges is secure with his card through next season as a recent winner. But that doesn't ensure a spot in the playoffs and right now he is No. 72 in points.
TPC Twin Cities opened in 2000, an Arnold Palmer design with an assist from Minnesotan Tom Lehman, who further assisted with a renovation six years ago in an effort to toughen the track for the regular Tour golfers.
Even though the course is very long (nearly 7,500 yards for a par 71) and has water on 15 holes (this is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, after all), the wind needs to be blowing to really thwart the golfers. The fairways are very wide -- more than 30 yards at the 300-, 325-, and 350-yard checkpoints. That lets the golfers fire at the bigger-than-average 6,500-square-foot Bentgrass greens that will run about 12 on the Stimpmeter.
There are some super long holes: All three par-5s are 590+ yards, there are two par-4s more than 500 and three of the four par-3s are at least 200. There are 72 bunkers.
Last year, the hardest holes were the 502-yard 9th, the 468-yard 2nd and the 501-yard 3rd -- all on the front.
TPC Twin Cities ranked only 38th on difficulty meter among all Tour courses last season (after being 14th in 2022). It annually ranks among the top-10 in double bogeys or worse. That's because it has led the Tour in water balls ever since becoming a tournament in 2019. That's right, more water balls than PGA National or TPC Sawgrass.
The Tour is not as open with announcing some stats as they used to be. But two years ago, golfers rinsed 303 balls. PGA National had 289 and Sawgrass had 272.
There were 169 double bogeys at TPC Twin Cities last year, fifth most on Tour, plus 18 triples or worse. One bad hole could wreck a whole week of fine play. But there also were also 1,869 birdies and 59 eagles, both of which were sixth most.
This might be the one week of the year to factor in bogey avoidance AND birdie average.
In the inaugural 3M Open in 2019, it was a birdie-fest. Matthew Wolff won at 21-under. That's not unusual for a new tournament, as the Tour doesn't want to make things too hard too fast, thereby keeping bigger-name golfers away. Michael Thompson won at 19-under in 2020 and Cameron Champ at 15-under in 2021. While there was a slight uptick in 2022 with Finau emerging at 17-under, he was three clear of co-runners-up Sungjae Im and Emiliano Grillo. Last year, Hodges soared all the way to 24-under -- but he won by seven strokes.
So other than Hodges, no one in the past four years has hit 20-under, which is sort of our unofficial threshold for declaring a tournament a birdie-fest.
As for the weather, temperatures approach the 90s the final three days of the tournament. There's no chance of rain till some possible Sunday thunderstorms. The wind should be in double digits but it will seem like a zephyr for those who were at Royal Troon last week.
3M Open notes: The PGA Tour returned to Minnesota in 2019 after a half-century absence. There had been a lot of big-time golf there in the interim, including the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine, which has also played host to U.S. Opens, PGA Championships, the 2019 Women's PGA Championship and nearly two decades' worth of a Champions Tour stops. But as for the PGA Tour, there had been nothing since the Minnesota Golf Classic in 1969. As you'll recall, Frank Beard came away with the title, ending the tournament's nearly four-decade run dating to 1930.
Key Stats to Winning at TPC Twin Cities
The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee/Driving Distance but also Driving Accuracy
• Strokes Gained: Approach/Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
• Strokes Gained: Putting
• Par-4 Efficiency 450-500 yards (5 holes)
• Bogey Avoidance
• Birdie Average/Birdie or Better Percentage
Past Champions
2023 - Lee Hodges
2022 - Tony Finau
2021 - Cameron Champ
2020 - Michael Thompson
2019 - Matthew Wolff
Champion's Profile
Here's a good suggestion if you want to win the 3M Open. Make a lot of putts but not a lot of bogeys. Gee, why don't more golfers try that approach? A lot of birdies will be made -- there have been a bunch of 63s and even 62s in the first five editions ... but also lots of double and triple bogeys. That's why we list bogey avoidance as a key stat. And also birdie average. Confusing? Yeah.
Last year, Hodges ranked 25th in driving distance, 13th in fairways hit and T9 in greens in regulation at more than 80 percent. He ranked 27th in SG: Off-the-Tee, first in Approach, 27th in Around-the-Green, first in Tee-to-Green and fourth in Putting. Overall, you had to hit at least 75 percent of GIR or you didn't finish in the top-12 on the leaderboard.
Two years ago, Finau ranked only 42nd in SG: Putting, but he was so good everywhere else and was able to hold off some great putters. Seven of the top-15 on the leaderboard ranked in the top-10 in putting. Im, who shared runner-up three strokes behind Finau, was almost identical to him in driving distance and fairways hit -- but he missed seven more greens.
Champ and Woolf are long hitters but Thompson is not. As always, there is more than one way to win a golf tournament.
The over/under on the winning score on golfodds.com is 264.5, which is 19.5 under par.
DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS
Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap
$10,000+
Tony Finau - $10,500 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +1100)
There are only three guys in five figures on the DraftKings board. We're passing on Theegala and Burns. Finau finished T7 here last year in his 2022 title defense. Until last week's Open Championship, where he missed the cut, he had run off three straight top-10s and, before that, two more top-25s. (If anyone missed the cut at the Open, don't factor that in -- the rainy weather and links course have no bearing on regular PGA Tour events). Finau ranks third on Tour in SG: Approach, sixth in Tee-to-Green and first in our model.
$9,000-$9,900
Akshay Bhatia - $9,800 (+2000)
Bhatia missed the cut at the Open (see Finau blurb above). Before that, a runner-up at the Rocket Mortgage, a top-5 at the Travelers and a T16 at the U.S. Open. He's been one of the top players over the summer. Outside of Around-the-Green, Bhatia ranks top-40 on Tour in every strokes-gained category. He ranks top-20 in our model in both bogey avoidance and birdie-or-better over his past 24 rounds.
Luke Clanton - $9,300 (+2500)
What this 20-year-old student at Florida State has done over the past month-plus has been nothing short of remarkable. Clanton has made four straight cuts beginning with the U.S. Open, following that up with a T10 at the Rocket Mortgage and a shared runner-up at the John Deere. He hasn't played enough to be ranked in the PGA Tour stats, but Clanton would rank fifth in SG: Tee-to-Green for the season, behind only Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Hideki Matsuyama. Obviously a small sample size but still.
J.T. Poston - $9,200 (+3000)
Poston has improved at TPC Cities three years running: He finished T28 three years ago, T11 in 2022 and shared runner-up last year. He hasn't played as consistent of late as he did earlier in the season, but his putter is enough of a weapon to change that in a hurry.
Keegan Bradley - $9,000 (+3000)
Bradley will start to be viewed and scrutinized differently now that he's the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain. It just comes with the territory. So he will have to figure out how to concentrate on playing for now. Bradley is among the best tee-to-green guys in this field and his putting has not been as bad as it often is. This hasn't been his best season, but Bradley did have top-25s at the Masters and PGA and was just outside that at the U.S. Open.
$8,000-$8,900
Cam Davis - $8,900 (+3000)
There are about a dozen guys who have played all five 3M Opens and Davis is one of them. It makes perfect sense because he plays so well there. T10 last year, with T16-T28-T12 in the three preceding years. Davis won the Rocket Mortgage in this part of the country a few weeks ago and followed it up nicely with a T26 at the Scottish Open.
Erik van Rooyen - $8,600 (+4000)
The former Minnesota Golden Gopher has not played all that well in three previous 3M Opens (two MCs, including last year). But it's been a pretty good year with four top-10s and top-25s in almost half of his 18 starts. van Rooyen lands inside the top 25 in our model with good-or-better rankings in every key metric.
Emiliano Grillo - $8,500 (+5500)
Grillo played in the past four 3M Opens. He's finished second, third and, last year, 10th. He's normally a very straight hitter, which is a good recipe for avoiding all the water here. Grillo's putting is far improved this season; he's ranked 81st overall. He's coming off a tie for 43rd at the Open Championship.
$7,000-$7,900
Ben Griffin - $7,900 (+4500)
Griffin has made a whopping 25 starts this season. He sits 59th in the standings, well inside the playoff cut line. But he surely will also play the Wyndham to try to move inside the top 50 and ensure a second playoff start. He's played his best lately and in weaker fields (News flash: This is a weaker field). He was runner-up in Canada and top-25 at the John Deere. Griffin came in at No. 12 overall in our model.
Seamus Power - $7,300 (+6500)
Power has only five top-25s on the season. But two of them have come in the past month at the Travelers and John Deere. And he just missed another last month at the Memorial. In other words, he's playing his best golf of the year now. While his season-long stats aren't great, his more recent ones are, which is how he landed 15th in our model.
Pierceson Coody - $7,100 (+9000)
Coody might be the best golfer in this field. He's coming off a playoff loss to Harry Hall at the ISCO Championship and has made six straight cuts, including another top-5 at the Charles Schwab. Coody is ranked third on Tour all season in SG: Putting. He should make a lot of birdies this week.
Hayden Springer - $7,000 (+12000)
Springer endured a brutal stretch of six straight missed cuts in the middle of the season. He rebounded with two consecutive top-10s, then made another cut before missing last week at the quirky-scoring Barracuda. His stats aren't perfect, but there's a lot to like: 36th in SG: Off-the-Tee, 52nd in SG: Putting and an impressive seventh in birdie average. Springer is one of the longest hitters on Tour who will have to sacrifice some distance this week for improved accuracy.
$6,000-$6,900
Chandler Phillips - $6,900 (+12000)
Phillips has been a reliable option when we've called on him, sometimes when he's been in the $5,000s. He had made five straight cuts, two of them top-12s, until missing last time out at the Scottish Open. Phillips is ranked top-50 on Tour in SG: Approach, SG: Putting and birdie average and he's 51st in bogey avoidance. That's really quite good, especially for a player in the $6,000s.
Ben Kohles - $6,800 (+15000)
Kohles arrives with four straight made cuts and better-than-you'd-expect odds for a $6,800 guy. All four of those tournaments were not what you'd expect. One was the U.S. Open and another was the Scottish Open. Kohles is 80th in the standings, not far from a playoff spot. Our model places him well inside the cut line thanks to excellent putting over his past 24 rounds.
David Skinns - $6,500 (+20000)
Feeling lucky? In his past six starts, the 42-year-old Englishman has three top-25s and three missed cuts. He's far from a flawless pick, but he's ranked 32nd on Tour in SG: Approach, which offers a good foundation. Skinns is well above average in bogey avoidance and birdie average. He's played TPC Twin Cities once before and made the cut two years ago.
Troy Merritt - $6,500 (+20000)
If you're into trends, Merritt's past six starts have gone: made cut/missed/made/missed/made/missed. Gee, we wonder what comes next? He is one of the dozen of so five-timers at this tournament, having made three cuts with a best of T7 in the first edition. Merritt is ranked 56th in SG: Approach and 72nd in Tee-to-Green with better than average birdie and bogey stats.
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