The Leading Logic In Sports Handicapping |
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msudogs
Moderator
Registered: Nov 2005
Posts: 65535
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3M Open
With victories at the PGA Championship and the British Open, Schauffele becomes the first player to win multiple majors in one season since Brooks Koepka (U.S. Open, PGA Championship) in 2018. Furthermore, with Schauffele’s two major victories plus Scheffler’s win at the Masters and Bryson DeChambeau’s U.S. Open victory, American players swept the four majors for the first time since 1982.
We will see Schauffele and Scheffler, along with Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark, leading Team USA to Paris for the Olympic Games in two weeks, but none of them are in this week’s 3M Open field in Minneapolis. With the 3M right before the PGA Tour’s week break for the Olympics and three weeks before the FedEx Cup Playoffs, the field is not all that strong at the top end, but there are some headliners.
Tony Finau (10-1) missed the cut at Royal Troon last weekend but won this event two years ago.
Sam Burns (18-1) shot a 65 on Saturday to be just one stroke off the lead heading into Sunday’s final round at the British Open but shot a 9-over 80 on Sunday to finish T-31.
Akshay Bhatia missed the cut last weekend, but he has had two top-5 finishes in the last month and is knocking on the door for another PGA Tour victory at 22-1 along with Sahith Theegala, who also missed last week’s cut but finished T-4 the week prior at the Genesis Scottish Open.
Luke Clanton (28-1), currently playing collegiately at Florida State, three weeks ago became the first amateur with back-to-back top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour since 1958.
Horschel posted his best career major championship finish with a T-2 at Royal Troon last week. He is priced at 30-1 along with Keith Mitchell, Tom Hoge and Keegan Bradley.
Lee Hodges (70-1) won here last year by seven strokes and is back to defend his title while 2021 3M champion Cameron Champ (150-1) is also in this week’s field.
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07-24-24 10:48 PM |
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msudogs
Moderator
Registered: Nov 2005
Posts: 65535
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TPC Twin Cities is in Blaine, which is 13 miles north of Minneapolis and 20 miles from St. Paul. The track was designed in 2000 by Arnold Palmer with consultation from Tom Lehman. Native Minnesotan PGA Tour players Lehman and Tim Herron along with Steve Wenzloff, PGA Tour VP of Design Services, renovated the layout in 2018. TPC Twin Cities is part of the Tournament Players Club group of courses owned by the PGA Tour.
The course will be played as a par-71 of 7,431 yards, which is the ninth-longest on the PGA Tour. It is a relatively easy and gettable parklands design with three shorter and drivable par-4s that longer hitters can reach. With three par-5s measuring 594 yards (6th), 593 yards (12th) and 596 yards (18th) in length, the longest holes on the course show some resistance here.
The closing 18th is arguably one of the best finishing holes on the tour. The hole doglegs with water on the right in play on both the tee shot and approach if players want to get aggressive with a 220+ yard approach over water to reach in two. Matthew Wolff won in climactic fashion at the inaugural 2019 3M Open, responding to Bryson DeChambeau’s eagle on 18 with an eagle of his own from just off the fringe.
There are 27 water hazards in play over 13 holes (third most on the PGA Tour), so it resembles a bit of a Florida-type layout. While it is a relatively easy course, there is danger lurking with all the water.
In addition, there are 72 bunkers, which were rebuilt and repaired after a heavy storm last September. The fairways (35 yards average width) are constructed of Bentgrass and they will play hard and fast with plenty of rollout. Plus, the course is at around 900 feet altitude (sixth highest elevation on tour), so the ball will fly a bit farther than normal. The rough can be a pesky four-inch Bluegrass/Fescue mix. The greens are large (6,500 square feet) and average speed (12.5 stimpmeter) Pure Bentgrass.
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07-24-24 10:48 PM |
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