Coming off a dominant performance by Brian Harman at the 151st Open Championship, the PGA Tour heads back stateside for the inevitable post-major letdown and the 3M Open held at TPC Twin Cities. Designed by the legendary golfer and architect Arnold Palmer, the course was laid out on a 235-acre tract of property on the site of a former sod farm in the Minneapolis suburb of Blaine, Minnesota.
After two straight events on links-style courses, the 3M Open also signals a return to the familiar confines of parkland-style golf. But TPC Twin Cities is not your typical parkland course. With 27 different bodies of water spread throughout the property, along with a full-sized housing development, it displays as more of a “Florida” course than one up north in Minnesota.
While TPC Twin Cities has one of the highest birdie rates on Tour it also has one of the highest “double-bogey or worse” rates as the multitude of water hazards and thick rough present a challenge to those who are not in good form. This course also contains numerous “risk-reward” holes which provide a level of excitement along with a challenging final stretch of holes that on Sunday will ensure that no lead is safe.
With it being the tenth longest course on Tour combined with the premium placed on accuracy off the tee thanks to nine different holes with water near the landing zone, players strong in Total Driving will have a huge edge. This is clearly evidenced by three excellent players off the tee among the past winners here in Tony Finau, Cameron Champ, and Matt Wolff. When adding the importance of gaining strokes on approach into the mix, TPC Twin Cities rates as one of the most ball-striking heavy courses on Tour with 59% of total strokes gained coming in this category.
2020 winner, Michael Thompson summed up the mental aspect of TPC Twin Cities quite well. “It is very much like PGA National. You know what shots you have to hit. There’s no if, and or but about it, you’ve just got to step up and hit the shot, and execute. If you’re not confident over the ball, you’re more likely to make a poor swing, which is going to result in a penalty. So you have to be really diligent with your visualizations, your commitment to each shot, pick your target, and trust it.”
The Field
The week after a major typically tends to struggle to attract big names. For this week’s 3M Open, 11 of the top 50 and 32 of the top 100 players in the world are in attendance. There is a small upper tier of players headlined by returning champion, Tony Finau, Cameron Young, Justin Thomas, Sungjae Im, Sepp Straka, and Hideki Matsuyama. There is some quality depth in the field this week compared to other editions of the 3M with players like Sahith Theegala, Tom Hoge, Emiliano Grillo, Billy Horschel, J.T. Poston, Ludvig Aberg, and Adam Hadwin. There are also a couple of high-profile DP World Tour players who are trying to gain their full-time PGA Tour card, in Ryan Fox and Nicolai Hojgaard.
As we head down the final stretch of the season and the typical weaker fields that come along with it, there is still a massive amount of FedEx Cup points on the line. Motivation becomes a real intangible this time of year as many players will be trying to either qualify or better their position with just two events remaining before the FedExCup Playoffs begin.
This is magnified even more so this year as only the top 70 in the FedExCup point standings will be eligible for the playoffs. Thomas, Davis Thompson, Lee Hodges, Justin Suh, Cam Davis, and Garrick Higgo are among the group of players that are currently on the outside looking in and will look to improve their placement this week.
Adding to the motivation narrative, there are numerous players trying to impress their respective Ryder Cup captains in hopes of being named to the American or European team. On the American side, this would include Justin Thomas and Cameron Young. For Europe, Aberg, Hojgaard, and Aaron Rai will have another chance to make a strong impression with a high finish.
2023 3M Open – Betting Narratives and Strategies
The overriding feature and defense of TPC Twin Cities is one of mankind’s most basic needs for survival – water. But for the 156 golfers teeing it up on Thursday, their main goal is to stay as far away from the wet stuff as possible. 27 lakes dot the 235-acre property, which includes 13 holes with direct water danger. Players who have the accuracy off the tee to keep their ball dry and who are strong ball-strikers with their irons and can set up close birdie chances will have the best opportunity to survive the cut-line and propel themselves up the leaderboard over the weekend.
TPC Twin Cities is a perfect example of a wide-open tournament full of volatility and variance. Anytime a course has an easy hit rate of both fairways and greens, the gap between the best and worst players gets shrunk. Combine this easy scoring with a weaker field and the threat of water danger everywhere, and you have the perfect setup for some extreme randomness. Three of the first four editions have seen a longshot winner along with unexpected high finishes by lower-tier players. For me, this is a week to take a few more chances with outrights down the board. The one player up top that I did take a stand on was Cameron Young at +1800.
On that note, the time has come for me to switch my own betting strategy. And I probably should have done it a lot sooner. After gaining over 15 units on pre-tournament and in-tournament matchups last week and gaining over 89 units on the year for those bet-types, along with being in a dreadful outright slump, I will be reducing both outrights and First Round Leader (FRL) units. Often times trying to hit an outright or a First Round Leader seems like searching for a needle in a haystack. And honestly, it’s probably the best common-sense move for anyone betting golf.
Getting back to TPC Twin Cities, you also should not shy away from players who struggle around the green or with their putter, as that will not have much impact this week. Last year’s winner, Tony Finau had lost strokes putting in 11 of his 17 events leading up to the 3M Open and only gained 0.8 total strokes putting the week of his victory. And 2021’s winner, Cameron Champ was literally in the bottom-10 on Tour the week of leading into the 3M. He ended up leading the entire field in putting. This week, we have numerous players in the field who are excellent ball-strikers but who have been struggling with the putter. Players like Cameron Young, Gary Woodland, and Aaron Rai fit this category and make excellent Top-20/30/40 bets.
There are a few other data points to consider when choosing players this week that I have included in the model. One of which relates to all the water danger on the course, which mostly affects players off the tee (OTT). I gathered OTT data on every course on Tour going back to 2019 that had at least nine holes with water directly in play. This gives some historical perspective on which players are more comfortable on these types of courses with a lot of water. That split was included in the OTT sub-model this week. Good Drive % is another vital stat because it measures the success of getting one’s approach shot to the green from any lie on the course. If a player ranks highly in that metric, there is a very good chance they are likely to stay out of the water.
I also included a “water danger” split for strokes gained per round for the same time frame. The top five players on courses with the most water danger since 2019 (with a minimum of nine rounds) are Justin Thomas, Tony Finau, Eric Cole, Cameron Young, and Sungjae Im.
Finally, course history and even recent form have proven to not be as correlated with success on this course or on easy courses in general. This week in the model, I have weighed long-term form (12 months) almost equally with recent form. The cream doesn’t always rise to the top. But in a weaker field such as this, strong long-term players like Keith Mitchell or Christiaan Bezuidenhout (neither of whom are highly valued this week) make for great buy-low bets. Also, players who thrive in easy-scoring conditions with weak fields make better plays than just looking at recent form. That metric has also been added to the model this week.
As for the course history angle, Matthew Wolff won here back in 2019 in only his fourth career start on Tour. 2020’s winner, Michael Thompson, finished dead last among cut-makers in 2019’s event. 2021’s winner Cameron Champ missed the cut in his only previous appearance at TPC Twin Cities. With this course ranking as the eighth least predictive on Tour, course history was given a very minor weight in the model this week.
Most Important Stats For Success at TPC Twin Cities
*In order of importance
- SG: OTT
- Total Driving
- SG: Approach
- Bogey/Double-Bogey Avoidance
- Good Drive %
- Proximity 175+
- Birdie or Better %
- Par 4 Scoring
- Par 5 Scoring
- SG: Easy Scoring Courses
Weather Forecast – Blaine, Minnesota
3M Open – Final Model
In each preview article and on Discord, I present my final model, which gives a detailed player ranking of the most important stats and splits for the week. My modeling is built around the PGA’s Strokes Gained data, which is divided into SG: Off the Tee (OTT), SG: Approach (APP), SG: Around the Green (ARG), and SG: Putting (P). Learn more about Strokes Gained and why it can be so useful in analyzing the past and predicting future performance. Many of the individual splits will be posted on my Twitter feed, with the final model exclusively published here for subscribers.
Outright Betting Selections
*Lines accurate at the time of publication.
Cameron Young +1800 (currently +1600)
After struggling through a two-month stretch between April and June, Young has emerged back to the ball-striking and dominant off-the-tee savant that saw him rise to a top-15 player in the world. He gained a staggering 16.8 strokes ball-striking at last week’s 8th place finish at the Open Championship which was preceded by a 6th at the John Deere Classic. It’s also not a coincidence that a dramatic turn in performance occurred after switching back to the golf ball that he had most of his success with in the past. With his combination of accuracy and distance off the tee, he is a perfect fit to combat the water hazards at TPC Twin Cities.
(1.33u) BetRivers
Aaron Rai +5500 (currently +4500)
Rai finished fifth overall in my model this week. While still searching for his first official PGA Tour victory, he has two recent top-10 finishes and has gained over 6.5 strokes on approach in three of his last six starts. He ranks as having the fourth-best tee-to-green game in the field over his past 36 starts and has gained with the putter in three of his last four. His pinpoint accuracy off the tee bodes very well for his chances to contend this week.
(0.43u) PointsBet
Eric Cole +6000 (currently +5500)
Week in and week out, Cole continues to pop in almost every type of model that I run. This week he finished eighth overall and ranks as the best “fairway to hole” player in the entire field. His irons have remained hot all year and he is one of the most consistent putters on Tour. While his off-the-tee game has struggled recently, he had his best career performance at a similar “water-danger” course when he finished runner-up at PGA National.
(0.40u) BetRivers
Austin Eckroat +9000 (currently +5500)
Eckroat is in the midst of the best stretch of his career with eight cuts made in his last nine starts that includes two top-10 finishes. He is a top-five ball-striker in this field and has the consistent game off the tee to find the fairway with all the water hazards that litter TPC Twin Cities where he already has a 16th-place finish in 2021. Another intriguing reason to back him is that his home course, Oak Tree National, in Edmund, Oklahoma is a tough track that is full of the same type of water hazards and risk-reward holes that he will face this week.
(0.26u) BetRivers
Other Outright Bets
Finishing Position Picks
Top 20
Top 30 all BetRivers
- Sepp Straka +100 (1u)
- Ludvig Aberg +100 (1.3u)
- Aaron Rai +115 (1u)
- Stephan Jaeger +120 (1u)
Top 40 – all FanDuel
- Adam Hadwin -110 (1.1u)
- Lucas Glover -110 (1.1u)
- Keith Mitchell -105 (1.1u)
- Patrick Rodgers -105 (1.1u)
- J.T. Poston +100 (1u)
- Eric Cole +105 (1u)
- Austin Eckroat +110 (1u)
- Mark Hubbard +115 (1u)
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Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images