2026 3M Open Picks + Bets, Notes, Course Breakdown & Weather
3M OPEN QUICK PICKS
WINNER
Jake Knapp +4500
Max Homa +5000 (5 Places)
Ben James +5500 (5 Places)
Michael Brennan +6000 (5 Places)
Casey Jarvis +8000 (5 Places)
BOMBS
Gary Woodland +14000 (3 Places)
Ben Kohles +17500 (3 Places)
Will Gordon +30000 (5 Places)
FIRST ROUND LEADER
Lucas Glover +8000
Austin Smotherman +9000
Austin Eckroat +9000
Will Gordon +16000
3M OPEN FINAL WORD
With Keith on vacation, Mayo and Alex Blickle discuss the odds for the 2026 3M Open making their Final Bets, One & Done selections. The guys preview which golfers fit the course, the weather draw and more in a free flowing golf conversation to have the final world on golf for the week. Plus, Mayo and Blickle go over DraftKings DFS Fantasy Golf Strategy for the 3M Open, primarily, how to play Scottie Scheffler and the chalk at each price range.
WATCH: 3M Open 2026 Bets, One & Done, Weather | Fantasy Golf 3M Open DraftKings Picks
NOTE: Blickle is branching out on his own with all his content appearing on his discord. He’ll have PGA & NFL projections, data, and ownership on there. If you get in before September, you’ll be locked into the lower price before it goes up. I recommend it. I’ve won many a $$$ tailing his pick’em and prop plays. Along with some of the sharp people in the discord who chime in.
JOIN BLICKLE’S DISCORD CHANNEL
3M OPEN Field
Field: 144 Players
Cut: Top 65 and Ties
First Tee: Thursday, July 23
Defending Champion: Kurt Kitayama
3M OPEN COURSE
Course: TPC Twin Cities
Par: 71
Yardage: 7,431
Greens: Bentgrass
Bunkers: 72
Holes Water is in Play: 15
Average Green Size: 6,500 sq. ft.
3M OPEN KEY STATS RANKS
Distance + Accuracy
Approach
Eagles Gained
Putting
Mayo’s Key Stat Rankings Powered by the Rabbit Hole at Betsperts Golf
Note: I didn’t exclude small samples, so you’re seeing a bunch of guys who only really have stats from last week in Punta Cana. You can bring up my full list in the Rabbit Hole.
Par 3’s (4): Average Distance - 210 yards
-> Three are over 200 (two over 225)
2025 Kitayama: Had a Back-9 Par 3 bogey in every round
Two of the four hardest holes to birdie on this track are Par 3’s
Three Par 3’s had a par rate over 70%
Par 4’s (11): Average Distance - 441 yards
-> Two under 400, two over 500 (plurality from 420-470)
2025 Kitayama: 13 Par 4 birdies over the weekend (in those two rounds, he was -13 on the Front-9)
The three toughest holes on this course are all front-9 Par 4’s (Holes 2-3-9), all with a bogey rate over 17%
Par 5’s (3): Average Distance - 595 yards
2025 Kitayama: 10 Par 5 birdies for the week (got all three of them in Rounds 2-3)
The three easiest holes on property, all holding an eagle rate north of 3%
DFS STREAKING
With Hole #9 being the toughest on the track and Hole #11 ranking 5th toughest, back-to-front is the way to go for Showdown contests. It’s no layup because Hole #17 and Hole #2 aren’t gimmies, but with Hole #18 and #1 both holding an under-par rate better than 22%, there’s more hope for generating momentum going this direction than playing things in order.
PAST WINNERS
2025: Kurt Kitayama -23
2024: Johnny Vegas -17
2023: Lee Hodges -24
2022: Tony Finau -17
2021: Cam Champ -15
2020: Michael Thompson -19
PAST WINNER DETAIL
2025: Kurt Kitayama -23 (+3500, T-8th on the board) beat Sam Stevens by 1
Of the top 6 finishers for the week, five ranked 21st or better ARG for the week
Of the top 6 finishers for the week, four ranked outside of the top 30 OTT for the week
2024: Johnny Vegas -17 (+8000) beat Max Greyserman by 1
Vegas was the only top-4 finisher to rank top 30 OTT for the week
Just get to the Green. Top-6 on the final leaderboard in T2G for the week: 7-22-1-10-11-2
2023: Lee Hodges -24 (+8000) beat JT Poston, Kevin Streelman, and Martin Laird by 7
Five of the top-6 finishers were 12th or better for the week in terms of putting
Dylan Wu, Keith Mitchell, and Martin Laird all cashed top-5 paychecks despite ranking outside of the top-45 in APP
2022: Tony Finau -17 (+1400, betting favorite) beat Sungjae Im and Emiliano Grillo by 3
Scott Piercy finished T-4 despite 64th in APP. The others to cash a top 5 check ranked 15th or better APP
1-2-3 in BS for the week finished T-4th, 2nd, 1st on the final leaderboard
2021: Cam Champ -15 (+12500) beat Louie Oosthuizen, Johnny Vegas, and Charl Schwartzel by 2
Champ gained 8.5 strokes putting (Keith Mitchell at +7.2 was the only golfer within even 1.5 strokes of that mark)
ARG didn’t matter. Of the top-10 finishers, 8 finished outside of the top 45 for the week
2020: Michael Thompson -19 (+12500) beat Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau by 1
Thompson was helpless around the green (108th), but dominated when aboard (1st, +7.3 strokes for the week)
Thompson was bogey free on Thursday and had 3 bogeys for the entire week (one on a Par 3, one on a Par 4, and one on a Par 5)
FIRST ROUND LEADERS
2025
60 - Adam Svensson (AM)
2024
63 - Jacob Bridgeman (AM)
2023
63 - Lee Hodges (AM)
2022
65 - Sungjae Im (AM, followed up with a 70) and Scott Piercy (AM, Friday 64 was nice, Sunday 76 less so)
3M OPEN NOTES
May was hot and humid, while June brought an unusual amount of rain (7”+) and forced many weather delays. The course drains well and there were no damaging storms. Amount of rain and thunderstorms delayed preparation with certain areas too wet to mow.
Before the 2024 tournament, bunkers were rebuilt after a storm with 7” of rain washed out almost every bunker in September of 2023. Other spring work on the course in 2024 included rebuilding and adding new sand in bunkers and expansion of professional tees on No. 6, 7, 9, 14, 17.
TPC Twin Cities hosted this event for the first time in 2019 and I actually got to walk the course that year. It’s pretty glaring where the danger lurks: 27 water hazards and 72 sand traps. Think of it as really easy PGA National. Avoid the aqua, score a lot. Only holes No. 5, 8, 13 and 15 are devoid of the essence of moisture.
This is a pure ball strikers course. That gets thrown around a lot, but it even showed up in the strokes gained metrics from a year ago. Be awesome with your irons, gain a few strokes off the tee, and don’t be an absolute train wreck on the bentgrass greens. Of course, a hot putter can run you up the leaderboard, it always can, but it’s going to be pointless if you can’t strike an iron.
The trickiest part is avoiding the land mines. As they’ll be pretty random. With so much water populating the grounds, one poorly judged approach can be the end of the week with so many other players going low.
The fairway are pretty generous, as in, they’re not so thin it makes them difficult to hit. The field hits 63% of fairways (TOUR average 62%) with the average driver going over 290 yards. Which is a pretty large number considering the amount of water balls bringing down that average.
Three of the four Par 3s measure over 204 yards. There are two par 4s over 500 yards, with a total of five extending over 450 yards. All three par 5s can generate eagles too; — No. 6 (1.7% Eagle Rate), No. 12 (3.2%), No. 18 (3.2).
3M OPEN BETS
Jake Knapp — Knapp’s results have been pitiful since his return from injury. Four starts, three missed cuts, and he only saw the weekend in a no-cut event at the Travelers. Those poor performances were not all created equal, though. In his first two starts (U.S. Open and Travelers), he was one of the worst ball strikers in the field, dropping over a stroke and a half per round. In Scotland and at The Open, Knapp’s ball striking returned, gaining with his driver and irons. His putter simply went cold, losing a stroke per round over his four rounds on the British Isles. Returning to ball-striking form is exactly what we want to see after a wrist injury. Poor putting on fescue grass halfway around the world? Not that concerning. Knapp had shorter odds in stronger events pre-injury, so getting him this far down the board in a weak event like this, which plays to his strengths (T3 in 2025), means people are only looking at the outputs and ignoring the inputs. Get the +4500 number as the PME BOOST at Coolbet.
Get Custom Player Data and Splits in the Rabbit Hole
Ben James — Back on the 23-year-old James for the third straight week. While he hasn’t won, he has been mixing it up near the top of the leaderboard each time. He’s been one of the most accurate players on TOUR since joining the big circuit at the Canadian Open and has started to light it up with his irons and putter. He’s been the victim of one bad round in every start. Fortunately, those bad rounds have started to become “slightly below average” rather than “tournament-ending.”
Max Homa — Strangely, his worst finish over the last two months came in the weakest field he’s played. Even including his T39 at the ISCO, Homa has gained on the greens and off the tee in every start while posting positive numbers on approach in four of the five. His numbers are starting to look like Tom Kim’s metrics before Scotland.
Michael Brennan — An easy bentgrass course that can be overpowered with an accurate driver and has a missed-fairway penalty as steep as Black Desert? BAH GOD, IS THAT MICHAEL BRENNAN’S MUSIC?????
Casey Jarvis — Twice a winner already this season on the DP World Tour, Jarvis hit the skids following his debut at The Masters, found something in Germany (T38), got slightly better in Scotland (T21), then surged up the leaderboard on the weekend at The Open (T6). He may be one of the first players ever to notch a Top 10 at a major while not getting one shot on the broadcast. Despite having no success in the U.S. in limited appearances, the number is simply too big for the 63rd-ranked player in the world.
Gary Woodland — Giving Gary another chance after last week’s debacle. Now, I’ll say up front, it’s very unlikely he gets into contention. The recent form has been piss poor. However, if he does get there, he’s one of the few who is actually likely to win. Outside of Scottie Scheffler, Woodland has the best Contention Performance Score of any player in the field. At this deep of a price, it’s worth a gamble.
Ben Kohles — Kohles went from 100/1 and losing on the last hole at the JDC to becoming one of the betting favorites the next week at the ISCO, only to disappoint with a T15. T15 isn’t a terrible result. Yet here we are, granted, in a slightly better field, but basically the same event except with seven good players at the top, and he’s well beyond the 100/1 range again. Nothing has changed. Kohles has even kept his usually awful putter hot.
Will Gordon — Long and straight off the tee is the cheat code to TPC Twin Cities, and that’s about the only thing Gordon can do. Now, Gordon had no finish inside the Top 50 on any tour before last week’s T4 at Corales, so this can go badly. Actually, it can’t, since he’s 300/1.
3M OPEN Weather
Looks gustier than normal at this event, and really, really hot. Don’t see a wave advantage as of now, but that doesn’t mean one won’t materialize.
WIND TOWER: Blaine
