Brian Harman shocked the world last week with his six-shot romp at The 151st Open.
His maiden win came in the Midwest, back at the 2016 John Deere Classic. The PGA Tour will head to the Midwest for this week’s 3M Open.
The 2023 major-championship campaign may be over but there is no time for rest as there are just two events remaining in the regular season; the 3M Open and next week’s Wyndham Championship.
The 3M Open has done a fine job attracting talent in recent years and they continued to do so this time around. That includes Justin Thomas who was a late addition to the 3M field. Thomas finds himself at just 75th in the FedExCup race, five spots outside of the key, top-70 bubble which is the cutoff this year for the FEC Playoffs.
The Course
TPC Twin Cities is located just north of Minneapolis in the suburb of Blaine.
This Arnold Palmer design was laid out in 2000 and received some renovations in 2018, making it PGA Tour-ready before the inaugural 2019 edition. It had previously hosted the 3M Championship on the senior circuit.
Off the tee, this course is fairly generous but big misses are heavily punished. In the Land of 10,000 Lakes it is only fitting to find water in play on 15 holes.
How often do those hazards come into play? Roughly 8 percent of missed fairways result in a penalty here, which puts it among the five-highest on Tour among regular host venues.
The result is the field finding 1.66 double or worse per 72 holes which puts it just behind other water-heavy courses like Bay Hill and TPC Southwind.
This isn’t a grind-it-out battle though. Golfers who find the fairway, or even the rough, are rewarded with plenty of birdie and eagle chances. Last year’s winner, Tony Finau, landed 88 percent GIR when attacking from the fairway and he ranked just 8th in the field in that regard. In 2021, there were nine golfers that landed more than 90 percent GIR from the fairway (14 golfers eclipsed that mark in the inaugural 2019 edition).
Glancing at the scorecard, we see a par 71 that stretches to 7,431 yards from the tips. There are four par 4s that play over 465 yards while two of them play under 385 yards. All three of the pr 5s flirt with the 600-yard mark but they play shorter than that, reachable by many in the field.
It’s hard to overlook the importance of power here with three of the four champions being mashers: Matthew Wolff, Cameron Champ, and Tony Finau.
Winning scores have ranged from 15 under in 2021 all the way up to 21 under in the inaugural 2019 edition. When low scores are available it often means elite putters get a boost but all of the water lurking around TPC Twin Cities puts a premium on fairways and greens.
Looking at the turf, golfers will see typical Midwest conditions with bluegrass rough and bentgrass putting surfaces. The greens are prepared to run around 12 feet on the stump.
Speaking of regional comfort, courses like Detroit GC and TPC Deere Run grade out as viable comp courses while other correlated tracks include PGA West, Silverado Resort, and TPC Sawgrass. Whether it’s easy scoring, amount of water in play, or bentgrass putting surfaces, these five courses have shown a lot of overlap with TPC Twin Cities.
Golfers to Watch
Justin Thomas
JT has fallen to 75th in the FedExCup race and with the new rules implemented this season, he currently finds himself five spots outside of the FedExCup Playoffs bubble. On the bright side, his best finish of the season came at TPC Scottsdale, another course with a lot of water hazards looking to snatch up errant shots. Along with playoff aspirations, Thomas also needs a good performance this week or next in order to keep his name in the Ryder Cup conversation. His 2023 resume doesn’t deserve a spot on stats alone, but a late-season kick combined with his past performances in team events would put him right back on the radar.
R
He would certainly fit right in alongside the list of past champs at TPC Twin Cities. He’s one of the best drivers on the planet and he’s rounding back into form with back-to-back top 10s in the lead up. Young will be making his course debut at TPC Twin Cities.
Eric Cole
One of the more pleasant surprise breakouts of the season has been Cole who currently sits at 43rd in the FedExCup race. The mini-tour legend has racked up more than 50 wins down in Florida so navigating a water-heavy course is second nature to him. Looking to back Cole this week and need a wild narrative to push your over the ledge? He’s good friends with Sam Saunders and grew up playing some of Arnie’s designs. Palmer is the architect at this week’s host course.
Patrick Rodgers
It was another close call for Rodgers last week, losing in a playoff to Akshay Bhatia at the Barracuda Championship. Rodgers now has seven podium finishes on the PGA Tour but no wins. He’s twirled a T-32 and T-39 in two tries at TPC Twin Cities.
Ludwig Aberg
Similar to Cam Young above, Aberg would certainly fit right in with the play style of past champs at TPC Twin Cities. The youngster absolutely mashes it. Matthew Wolff and Collin Morikawa finished 1-2 at the inaugural 2019 3M Open, fresh out of college similar to Aberg. The Swede claims the Ryder Cup wasn’t on his radar during his playing days at Texas Tech, but a big finish to the 2023 campaign would likely earn him a ticket to Rome.
Ranking the Field
1. Cameron Young
2. Tony Finau
3. Sungjae Im
4. Hideki Matsuyama
5. Justin Thomas
6. Emiliano Grillo
7. Gary Woodland
8. Sepp Straka
9. Keith Mitchell
10. Ludvig Aberg
11. Adam Hadwin
12. Sahith Theegala
13. Stephan Jaeger
14. Ryan Fox
15. Patrick Rodgers
16. Eric Cole
17. Sam Bennett
18. Aaron Rai
19. Alex Noren
20. Nicolai Hojgaard