After a fantastic Open Championship, the PGA TOUR is headed to TPC Twin Cities for the 2026 3M Open. It might not come with the same stakes as last week’s final major, but there are still bets to be made on who will lead after the first round.
This is a look at the best first-round leader bets to make for the event on DraftKings Sportsbook.
3M Open: First Round Leader Picks
The 3M Open is the follow-up to last week’s amazing Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. The Champion Golfer of the Year, Ryan Fox, will not be playing. Neither will most of the world’s top players. Surprisingly, Scottie Scheffler, the World No. 1, will be playing in the 3M Open for the first time. Other than Scheffler, no other players in the OWGR top 25 will be playing. Defending champion Kurt Kitayama is in the field. The other top contenders are Hideki Matsuyama, Keith Mitchell and Tom Kim. This is a full-field event with 144 players and a standard 36-hole cut.
TPC Twin Cities is a par-71 course that ranges 7,431 yards. This course has easy scoring conditions if you keep the ball in the fairway and hit greens. There are numerous birdies to be found on this course, with Kurt Kitayama winning at -23 last year. However, there is also a high-bogey percentage on this course for a track with “easy” scoring conditions. There are water hazards throughout the course, including on each of the final three holes. The easy conditions can lure players into a false sense of security and cause them to be over-aggressive and be penalized for it.
Scottie Scheffler FRL (+1225)
Scottie Scheffler has no excuse this week. He is by far the best player in the field this week. Scheffler has not played his best as of late, or really at all in 2026. His main issue has been with his putter, and this course has some of the easiest putting conditions you will ever see on the PGA TOUR. Scheffler should be able to roll some putts in on this course and get his groove back, likely why he decided to play this tournament while so many other elite players are passing on this week.
The easy putting conditions will naturally benefit the players who give themselves the easiest birdie looks. Scottie Scheffler, despite not being at his best, still leads the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, scoring average, bogey avoidance and Greens in Regulation percentage this season. While struggling with his putter against the best players in the world, Scheffler still finished T4 at Royal Birkdale last week. This is his chance to go out and post some low numbers and show why he is the World No. 1.
Jackson Koivun FRL (+4800)
Jackson Koivun is a player on the rise. The 21-year-old turned pro over the summer and just made his PGA TOUR debut a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic. This is Koivun’s chance to put on a good performance as a professional, with easy scoring conditions and a weak field. Last time out, Koivun finished T10 at the ISCO Championship. He also had a fantastic T23 finish at the U.S. Open a few weeks ago.
It’s difficult to imagine that Koivun will hold up against Scottie Scheffler and the other great players in this field over four rounds. However, Koivun could easily get hot and shoot the lowest round of the day on Thursday. These weak fields are where plenty of players end up winning their first tournaments, and maybe that is on the cards for the former No. 1 amateur in the world. Koivun is a great tee-to-green player, and if that putter gets hot, he could be the first-round leader after Thursday’s round.
