3M OPEN: With the year’s four majors now in the rearview mirror, the focus for PGA Tour players shifts to the FedEx Cup Playoffs, which begin in three weeks in Memphis. The Tour is off next week for the Olympic competition in Paris, which means only two events remain — this week’s 3M Open and the Wyndham Championship later this month — until the 70-man Playoff field is finalized. So, for those on the bubble, this is white-knuckle time: their whole season is at stake, not to mention a big pile of cash.
Notable names currently outside the top-70 include Keith Mitchell (no. 75), the red-hot Harry Hall (no. 81), and young Michael Thorbjornsen (no. 125), the top player in college golf last year who finished runner-up at the John Deere earlier this month. All three are in the field this week, as is defending champion Lee Hodges, another player who is just outside the top-70 (no. 72) and needs a good result.
The is the sixth edition of this tournament, which happens to be the Tour’s only stop in Minnesota. It’s been held at the same course each time — TPC Twin Cities, an Arnold Palmer-designed track located in the Minneapolis suburb of Blaine. The course is not particularly difficult, though they’ve made it a little more challenging over the last couple of years by narrowing some fairways and growing out the rough. Still, there’s not enough severity off the tee to bother Tour players and the greens are straightforward and silky smooth, resulting in buckets of birdies. The cut is always under par here, and Hodges reached 24-under last year to claim victory.
Another thing worth mentioning is that length off the tee has proven to be a significant advantage at TPC Twin Cities, with bombers like Tony Finau, Cameron Champ, and Matthew Wolff all winning here in the past 5 years. The par-5s are very gettable and present eagle opportunities for the longer guys, and missing fairways and finding the lush bentgrass rough is a lot more penal for the shorter players who may not have the luxury of needing only wedges or short irons on approach. Of course, Hodges is right around Tour average when it comes to distance and 2020 champ Michael Thompson is one of the shortest guys in pro golf, so bombing it is not necessarily a prerequisite for success at TPC Twin Cities, but when looking at overall trends it’s undeniable that length off the tee will provide a significant advantage this week.
2022 champion Tony Finau heads BETDAQ’s Win Market at 13.5, followed by youngster Akshay Bhatia (22.0) and Sam Burns (23.0). The field is not particularly strong this week, as you would expect the week after the Open, which means there may be an opportunity to strike paydirt with one of the longer-odds guys (Hodges went off at 100.0 last year). With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Tom Hoge (40.0)- Hoge is quietly having a big season, with 18 made cuts and 10 top-25s across 22 starts. What’s more, he’s only three starts removed from his best performance of the year, a T3 at the Travelers Championship, a Signature Event with an elite field. Hoge closed with a Sunday 62 that week to go along with the 63 he shot on Friday, proving again that he isn’t scared to go low when birdies are out there. This is another week where bunches of birdies will be required, of course, and Hoge has fared well at this tournament in the past, finishing T4 in 2022 to go along with top-25s last year (T20) and in 2019 (T23). This is not a guy totally unaccustomed to contending — he has a win and a couple of runner-ups on his resume — so there’s no reason to expect him to falter or slow down if he finds himself in contention on Sunday. On this course, with this field, Hoge is a great value at 40.0.
Emiliano Grillo (70.0)- Though he hasn’t spent much time on the first page of leaderboards this season, Grillo has been solid, making 16 cuts in 19 starts and logging a pair of top-10s. He made the cut at Royal Troon last week before a Sunday 75 left him in a tie for 43rd, and he’s teed it up in all the big ones this season — all four majors and every Signature Event. So, he’s paid his dues and it’s time for him to strike. This is certainly the right venue: Grillo has found the top-10 in 3 of his 4 appearances at this tournament, finishing 10th last year, runner-up in 2022, and 3rd in 2020. Oftentimes in pro golf we see certain players make a large percentage of their money on certain courses, and TPC Twin Cities has been that type of track for Grillo. Can he pick up his third career win this week? At a price like 70.0 on a course he loves, he’s worth chancing.
Michael Thorbjornsen (100.0)- Though he’s been a prominent name in amateur golf for the past couple of years, Thorbjornsen’s big splash in the professional game came at the John Deere three weeks ago, when he finished runner-up after posting 24-under for the week. This is a similar type of challenge — another course that features wall-to-wall bentgrass and is on the easier side, meaning another birdie-fest is on tap. Thorbjornsen has shown he can make birdies in bunches, and he has something else that will help him at TPC Twin Cities: prodigious length off the tee. Though he hasn’t logged enough rounds to officially qualify, his average of 316.2 yards per drive would place him third on Tour behind Rory McIlroy and 2021 3M Open champion Cameron Champ. So, the toolset is there, the pedigree is there, and we nearly saw him pull off a victory earlier this month on a similar type of course. At a price like 100.0, Thorbjornsen might be the best value on the board this week.
