Pat Mayo and Geoff Fienberg preview the course and run through the odds while making their 2023 3M Open Picks with special visit from the self-proclaimed “Big Game Hunter” Tim Anderson for his favorite selections for this week’s event at TPC Twin Cities
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2023 3M Open: Field
Field: 156 Players
Cut Line: Top 65 and Ties
First Tee: Thursday, July 27
Defending Champion: Tony Finau
2023 3M Open: Key Stats
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Strokes Gained: Off The Tee
- Eagles Gained
- Par 4s 450-500 Yards Gained
Mayo’s Key Stats powered by FantasyNational.com
2022 3M Open: Course
- Course: TPC Twin Cities
- Par: 71
- Yardage: 7,431
- Greens: Bentgrass
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Par 3s (4) - Average distance: 203 yards
- The first par 3 on the course (hole No. 4) is the shortest (177 yards) and plays as the easiest of the 3s (19.3% birdie rate, the only Par 3 over 14.5%)
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%.
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).
2023 3M Open: Past Winners
- 2022: Tony Finau -17
- 2021: Cameron Champ -15
- 2020: Michael Thompson -19
- 2019: Matthew Wolff -21
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.
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.
- Champ rode the hottest putter in the field (+8.5 strokes) and four of the top-five putters in the field finished top six on the final leaderboard.
2020: Michael Thompson (-19, two clear of Adam Long)
- Thompson’s best round came on Thursday (64, one back of the first-round leader) and after bogeying No. 3 on Sunday, he went bogey-free with five birdies over the final 14 holes to earn the victory.
- 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).
WINNER FORM
2022: Tony Finau
- He posted a T-28 at The Open and a missed cut at the U.S. Open in the big events prior to the 3M win ... he was T-13 or better in his three non-major events leading into the 3M.
2021: Cam Champ
- He seemed to find something at the John Deere (T-11) after a five-event streak that saw him post four missed cuts and a WD.
2020: Michael Thompson
- He showed zero form prior to breaking through. Heck, he showed zero form after the W, too. In his three lead-in tournaments, he didn’t have a finish better than T-46 and in his final four events of the season post 3M win, he didn’t have a finish better than T57.
2019: Matthew Wolff
- He also showed no form leading in: he was cut at the Rocket Mortgage after a MCDF at the Travelers the week prior
2023 3M Open: Notes
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.
2022: It was very much a stars-and-scrubs week with five of the top-seven DK scorers costing you under $8,000 and the other two holding five-figure salaries (Finau: $10,500).
2021: Five of the top seven on the final DK leaderboard cost no more than $7,500 (Champ: $7,100) while five of the six most expensive golfers finished outside of the top 20 in fantasy points.
2020: Thompson won the event priced at $7,000 during a week that featured carnage at the top of the DK board with nine of the 12 most expensive golfers failing to play the weekend.
2019: Wolff won at $7,300 and was one of five players that finished top eight on the final DK leaderboard that was priced at that point or cheaper (DeChambeau was the only golfer to finish top 11 on the DK leaderboard that was priced over $8,100).
2023 3M Open: Picks
Lucas Glover ($8,200)
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There’s a chance he went pumpkin over the weekend in Kentucky after sporting the 36-hole lead, but three straight top-six finishes in mid-to-weak fields for The GLOVE is far and away the best form in the field. He’s gaining +1.4 SG: APP/RD over his last 12 while piling on two strokes per event off the tee over that same period. The biggest thing is going to be his putter. After dropping strokes to the field in 17 of 19 starts, Glover switched putting styles and it immediately paid dividends, gaining nine strokes over eight rounds between Detroit and Silvis. Then at the Barbasol, it was lost to the field. Nothing crazy, -0.7 SG: PUTT, well still far off his nadir of -8.5 at the Byron Nelson earlier this season. For his sake, and ours, let's hope the putter gets back into the positives again.
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Pat Mayo is an award-winning video host and producer of long and short-form content, and the host of The Pat Mayo Experience daily talk show. (Subscribe for video or audio). Mayo (@ThePME) won the 2023 Fantasy Sports Writing Association Podcast of the Year and was a finalist for three FSWA Awards in 2023 (Best Podcast, Daily Fantasy Writer of the Year, Golf Writer of the Year). His 27 FSWA nominations lead all writers this decade and are second-most all-time.
Mayo has been recognized across multiple sports (Football, Baseball & Golf), mediums (Video, Writing & Podcasting), genre (Humor), and game formats (Sports Betting, Daily Fantasy, and Traditional Season Long Fantasy).
I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is ThePME) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skills and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.