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BETS
Akshay Bhatia — Akshay’s numbers are hurt a bit by actually playing in The Open, but few are on the run like him at the moment. Those with better than goldfish memories will recall he 3-putted the 72nd hole in Detroit to lose by one, a week after going out late at Travelers and coming T5. His accuracy should assist in avoiding the wet landmines and TPC Twins Cities can be attacked from the short grass by the elite iron players. Which is Bhatia’s biggest skill.
Tom Hoge — Irons and putting. Outside of a few outliers this has been the cheat code to the top of the leaderboard at the 3M. We know Hoge can light it up with his approaches, and he’s been better than average on the greens. Seems like the proper combo.
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Keegan Bradley — More of a hunch than anything else. The iron play could be considerably better, this is known. Still, Keegan’s putter is heating up and still holds the ability to mash it accurately off the tee. And it’s a bit unfair to compare his results against the rest of this field. Keegan has only played in one non-Major/Signature event since March. He was T2 at Colonial. In fact, he has a pair of runners-up in his four regular PGA TOUR events in 2024,.
Michael Thorbjornsen — This fall down the odds board seems a bit harsh considering he was a co-favorite at a tournament two weeks ago. Young players are inherently going to be wildly inconsistent, but talent wise, Thorbjornsen outclasses everyone else in odds range.
Austin Eckroat — His results have been on the decline since his breakthrough win at PGA National in March, however the ball striking numbers are back on the rise. He’s lost off the tee and on approach just twice in 12 starts since the win. The biggest factor for Eckroat has been strength of competition. His win got him into all the Majors and Signature events where he has not fared well, to put it kindly. I scanned the lost for the 3M, this is not a strong field.
JJ Spaun — Spaun’s gained on the field with his irons in every start since March and has been quietly figuring out the rest of his game the last month. There’s a worry he’ll mash it into the middle of every lake (and maybe even some ponds) across the grounds at TPC Twin Cities, but if he can avoid those, he’s been as good as anyone with scoring clubs the past 4 weeks.
Jon Rahm — Finally looked right to me at The Open. Good enough for me to back him as a favorite again on LIV.
UNDERDOG RD1
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WEATHER
There’s a slight advantage (seemingly) to the PM/AM wave. Problem is, basically none of the expensive players are in that wave, so most PMAM lineups will end up being very similar. Tambo and I walked through how to make those lineups a bit different on today’s show, but in case you don’t wanna watch (how dare you. But I get it) most of it has to do with starting at Burns and skipping Horschel/Poston or simply fading the 7K PM Chalk Eckroat/Chan Kim mainly.
WIND TOWER: Anoka County Airport
3M Open
Field: 156 Players | Top 65 and Ties Make the Cut after 36 Holes
First Tee: Thursday, July 25
Defending Champion: Lee Hodges
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.
Par 3's (4): Average Distance -- 203 yards
- The three most par'd holes are Par 3's (four of the top-6 in par% are Par 3's)
- Six holes on this course have a sub-15% birdie rate: three of them are Par 3's
Lee Hodges recorded two Par 3 birdies on Saturday. In the other three rounds, he had one birdie and one bogey to show for the shorter holes
- The first par 3 on the course (hole No. 4) is the shortest (177 yards) and plays as the easiest of the 3s (19% birdie rate, the only Par 3 over 15%)
Par 4s (11) - Average distance: 440 yards
The three toughest holes on the course are all par 4s on the front nine (holes 2-3-9), all of which hold a bogey-or-worse rate north of 22%.
- Four of Hodges' five bogies last season came on 4's (three coming on the front-9)
Par 5s (3) - Average distance: 595 yards
The par 5s all had a birdie-or-better rate over 36% while no other hole on the course was over 26.5%. That said, the finishing hole can be something of a boom-or-bust hole (21.3% bogey-or-worse rate alongside the 36.4% birdie-or-better rate, only 42.3% of the time did a player walk away with par).
- As expected, these are the three easiest holes and all carry an eagle rate of at least 2.5%
- Hodges was under par on #6 and #18 in all four rounds (he had a pair of Par 5 eagles on Sunday)
Past Winners
2023: Lee Hodges -24
2022: Tony Finau -17
2021: Cam Champ -15
2020: Michael Thompson -19
2019: Matthew Wolff -21
2023: Lee Hodges -24 (seven clear of Martin Laird, JT Poston, and Kevin Streelman)
- He was the solo first round leader with a Thursday 63 and followed it up with a 64 on Friday (5+ strokes ahead of the three eventual runner-ups heading into the weekend)
- Three of the top four putters for the week cashed top-5 paychecks (Dylan WU led the field in putting at +11.5 and finished 5th despite losing ground from tee-to-green)
2022: Tony Finau (-17, three clear of Emiliano Grillo and Sungjae Im)
Finau didn’t shoot worse than a 68 once during the week and was four strokes better than Grillo on Sunday (a late birdie streak on holes 14-16 made the difference).
Distance off the tee wasn’t a major deal: none of the top 12 for the week in driving distance cashed a top-15 paycheck. Yet, Seven of the top nine finishers gained at least 2.7 strokes off the tee
2021: Cam Champ (-15, two clear of Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Jhonattan Vegas)
- Champ gradually got better (69-67-67-66), closing with a bogey-free Sunday that featured a pair of birdies on par 3s.
- Four of the top five putters for the week finished with at least a share of 6th place (Champ was the best putter at +8.5 while everybody's favorite Keith Mitchell also had the stroke going -- finished in 5th place despite losing ground in approach and around-three-green thanks to +7.2 strokes putting)
2020: Michael Thompson (-19, two clear of Adam Long)
He was just one off the pace after a 64 on Thursday (his best round of the week) and brought home the title thanks to never shooting worse than 68
Thompson overcame losing strokes OTT and ARG by leading the field in putting (+7.3)
... 11 players finished with at least a share of 3rd place (RIP to any top 5 bets under dead heat rules) and seven of them picked up 3+ strokes with the flat stick
Fifteen of the top-17 finishers on the final leaderboard gained in proximity from the 100-125-yard bucket.
2019: Matthew Wolff (-21, one clear of Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau)
An eagle on 18 secured the win, answering DeChambeau’s eagle one group ahead of him.
Wolff was two shots better than anyone in the field with a 62 on moving day, the deciding factor after both Morikawa and DeChambeau were better than him in each of the first two days (two strokes better than Morikawa on Saturday and eight better than DeChambeau).
Only two of the top 14 on the final leaderboard gained strokes putting from 25+ feet (only two of them lost strokes with the flat stick in the 10-15-foot range).
DraftKings Streak: The likelihood of a birdie streak bridging either nine isn’t very likely, but going back-to-front is the percentage play as it doesn’t include the toughest hole on the course (hole No. 9, average score on the par 4 is 4.26). In going back-to-front, you get two of the four easiest holes on the course (holes 1 and 18), making holes 2 and 17 the swing holes. Sure, both of those holes rank among the seven toughest to birdie, but their birdie rates (14.8% and 13.5% respectively) are considerably lower than the tough No. 9 (9%) that the front-to-backers would need to get.
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NOTES
CHANGES FOR 2024: Spring work on the course 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 newly minted event for the first time in 2019 and I actually got to walk the course last season and 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. No big shocker here.
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.
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 (4.1).
— PM