After an exciting Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, the PGA TOUR resumes its regular schedule with a trip to the Twin Cities for this week’s 3M Open. The 3M Open has been a regular stop on the PGA TOUR since 2019, when the event at TPC Twin Cities moved from the Champions Tour to a regular event.It’s usually a low-scoring event with lots of volatility and plenty of drama as the week goes on. Let’s look at Round 1 and pinpoint a few of my best bets for Round 1 of the 3M Open Championship on DraftKings Sportsbook.
The 144 players in the field will tee off in two waves from hole No. 1 and hole No. 10. The early wave starts at 7:45 a.m. ET, with the later wave beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET. The weather forecast is mostly overcast for Thursday with wind picking up as the day goes on but never getting brutal. There could be a slight advantage to going out early, but it doesn’t look too impactful overall. Even without much variance in weather, always be ready to read and react to how scores are trending if you are live-betting the event.
In this post, we’ll focus on my three best bets for Round 1 of the 3M Open on Thursday, July 23.
Benjamin James Under 68.5 (-120)
James has made the cut in all five of his PGA TOUR events since he made his professional debut at the RBC Canadian Open. He accepted the full-time PGA TOUR membership that he earned by finishing No. 1 in the 2026 PGA TOUR University Ranking after an impressive season at Virginia.
The 23-year-old finished an impressive T23 at the U.S. Open, T15 at the ISCO Championship, and T4 last week at the Corales Puntacana Championship. He ranked in the top five in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach, GIR% and Scrambling in the Dominican Republic, and he’ll look to carry over that momentum into his debut at TPC Twin Cities.
He was under this prop line in three of his four rounds last week and all four of his rounds at the ISCO Championship. The course this week is a par-71, so he’ll have to finish -3 or better to hit the green on this prop.
Mac Meissner +100 over Max Greyserman – Round Matchup (3 Way)
In the very first group off the first tee on Thursday, Max Greyserman will play alongside Mackenzie Hughes and Rasmus Hojgaard. About 20 minutes later, Mac Meissner tees off from No. 10 alongside Rico Hoey and Sudarshan Yellamaraju. While it will be a little tricky to track this matchup since the players will start on opposite nines, the odds for backing Meissner are strong enough to overcome that obstacle.
Meissner ranks seventh in the field in Total Strokes Gained, 15th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and 10th in Strokes Gained: Putting over the last three months. He also ranks in the top 20 in Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green. His strong overall game has helped him make the cut in nine of his last 10 events with four top-10 finishes at the Zurich Classic, the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic, the Charles Schwab Challenge, and the John Deere Classic.
Meissner has made the cut in both of his previous appearances at TPC Twin Cities, finishing T59 in 2024 and T14 last year. On the other side of the matchup, Greyserman has played this event twice. He finished runner-up in 2024 but missed the cut in his return last year.
Greyserman’s current form isn’t quite as strong as Meissner’s as he returns to the 3M Open. He missed the cut at The Open Championship last week. It was his fourth missed cut in his last six events, with no top-35 finishes during that stretch. He has had more near misses than Meissner, with five runner-up finishes in his career, but since Meissner has better form, he has a good chance to win this head-to-head matchup in Round 1.
Cameron Champ (+200) over Matthias Schmid and Adam Svensson – 3 Ball – Round 1
Let’s finish out these Round 1 Best Bets with a fun longshot play from the afternoon wave. At 1:11 p.m. ET, former 3M Open winner Cameron Champ will play alongside Adam Svensson from Canada and Matti Schmid from Germany.
Even though none of these three have been especially effective this season, Champ comes in with enough history and form to be a strong play at 2:1 odds. The 31-year-old claimed one of his three career PGA TOUR victories on this course in 2021 and made the cut in each of his three appearances since then. He was T16 in 2022, did not play the event in 2023, T12 in 2024, and T28 in 2025.
His strong game off the tee typically plays well at the track, and he’s done a good job on the greens as well, gaining strokes putting in each of his last four tournaments at TPC Twin Cities. While he hasn’t played much on the PGA TOUR this year, he has three top-25 finishes on the Korn Ferry Tour. He posted a T6 at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic in January and a T9 at the LECOM Suncoast Classic. He has been at three recent events on the PGA Tour, though, and after missing the cut at the John Deere Classic, he made the cut at the ISCO Championship and the Corales Puntacana Championship over the last two weeks.
Schmid is actually the favorite in this 3-ball at +144, and he’s coming off a T23 at the BMW International Open in Munich and a T21 at the Genesis Scottish Open, so it makes sense. However, before that, he did miss three straight cuts at the U.S. Open, the RBC Canadian Open, and THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson. He is having a better season on the PGA TOUR than the other players in this group, and has finished T20, T12 and T61 in his three appearances at this event. Schmid is usually very good at driving distance but struggles with accuracy at times, which makes him a dangerous option this week.
Svensson comes in with the shakiest form after missing the cut or finishing T60 or worse in five straight tournaments. He did have a solid T14 at this event last year and has made the cut in four of five appearances, but his current form makes him easy to pick against in this matchup.
Champ is obviously a high-risk option in this group, but his odds are extremely favorable and he definitely has the potential to deliver a win if coming back to TPC Twin Cities helps him continue his momentum.
