In partnership with

Home stretch now with the playoffs (boo) and football (yay) on the horizon. This is a pretty enjoyable course even with the low scores we’ll see here. Similar to a Florida track, the water is everywhere and very much comes into play if you’re playing even semi-aggresively.

I won’t wax poetic about my home course, I’d rather get this sent out and go wander the course and watch the pro-am, so, as always, an excerpt from Ron’s course preview:

TPC Twin Cities

Located in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” TPC Twin Cities is a relatively flat par-71 layout stretching 7,431 yards. The course features bentgrass fairways and greens, native prairie grasses, and 27 bodies of water framed by mature oak, spruce, and pine trees. Architecturally, TPC Twin Cities tends to fall flat. Many holes blend together due to the repetitive use of water hazards, giving the course a Florida-like feel despite its Midwestern setting. The abundance of homes lining the fairways also detracts from the natural beauty of the property, making the overall experience feel more manufactured than memorable.

Before the inaugural event back in 2019, tournament founder Hollis Cavner gave a brutally honest description of how organizers wanted the 3M Open to play by saying, “We want birdies and train wrecks, and we don’t want to be the hardest golf course on the tour”. While the course features tons of birdies and low scoring, the data points to it not being a complete “birdie-fest.” Thanks to all of the danger off the tee, longer rough, and a typically firm course (if weather permits), the scoring average per round since 2019 is only -0.61.

TPC Twin Cities has always emphasized positioning off the tee — setting up aggressive approaches to tucked pins while carefully navigating the 13 water hazards in play. Stray drives that end up in the water tend to lead to a bogey or worse. Said Adam Long who has three top-25s here, “There’s a lot of intimidating shots out there. There’s room to miss and stuff, but there’s a lot of water out there as we saw the first few days. It’s kind of in your face, you can’t avoid it. You just have to kind of step up and hit a golf shot a lot of times out there. So it provides a lot of birdies, but it’s also pretty visually intimidating.”

Despite its reputation as a scoreable layout, TPC Twin Cities ranks sixth in penalty strokes per round and records more water balls than any other course on Tour — elevating the importance of tee shot control and Bogey Avoidance compared to typical birdie-friendly tracks. Additionally, with the course not fully tree-lined, the open layout allows wind to play a larger role — something that was especially evident during the 2022 tournament.

Nevertheless, in line with other low-scoring events like the John Deere and Rocket Mortgage Classics, TPC Twin Cities is expected to produce ample birdie opportunities and a winning score likely reaching the high teens or better. In 2023, Lee Hodges ran away with the trophy and won by seven strokes at 24-under. With the greens typically playing very soft and receptive, it comes down to a test of who can keep their ball dry off the tee followed by a ball-striking and a putting contest.

From an agronomy standpoint, the rough is a four-inch blend of bluegrass and fescue. Fairways and greens are pure bentgrass with the greens running at around 12.5 on the stimpmeter. Greens are average in size at 6,500 square feet.

Key Stats

Key stats to be digging into this week, or including in your models:

• Distance From Edge of Fairway (DFEF): Precision off the tee is critical due to water hazards.

• SG: Approach: nearly two thirds of strokes gained come from approach play, with over 40% of approach shots from >175 yards along with some fairly easy proximity

• SG: Ball Striking: vital everywhere, but again, with high water danger, I want guys who throw darts.

• Bogey/Double-Bogey Avoidance: Crucial to avoid blowup holes from water and rough.

• Good Drive %: Balances distance and accuracy (10th widest fairways at 35 yards).

• Birdie or Better %: High birdie rate demands capitalizing on scoring opportunities.

• Par-4 Efficiency: There are some extremely easy par 4s here, with FIVE offering >20% birdie rate.

• Total Driving: Combines distance and accuracy, with past winners like Vegas, Finau, Champ, and Wolff excelling. While distance isn’t a prerequiste for winning, it certainly doesn’t hurt (if you can do it while avoiding the water)

• SG: Easy/Average Scoring Courses: Correlates with low-scoring events like Rocket Mortgage Classic and John Deere

Betting

I had built a Rabbit Hole model for the 3M last year, but it included a bit too much putting for my liking and I redid it with mostly ball striking and scoring metrics to help me find guys that can and should be in position to let the putter get hot this week in Blaine. It’s a bit of a crapshoot, but a combo of ball striking, form and price seems to be the recipe for the week. I’ll even take a bite of the ultra-mushed Thorbjornsen.

Six Pack + a Bomb

Michael Thorbjornsen +2800
Taylor Pendrith +3500
Emiliano Grillo +5500
Rico Hoey +6500
Cam Champ +7000
Kevin Roy +9750

Brenden Valdes +40000 (Top 20 +1000/Top 40 +350)

Noonan and I were on the same page for a lot of this, you can check out his thoughts as well:

Weather

Well, it’s pretty cloudy right now and it looks like the pro-am may be interrupted a bit with some storms rolling through the area.

The winds are not looking to be a factor at all, but again with the storms projected for overnight, we will be looking at a very soft course, possibly even preferred lies on Thursday (59 watch). Not looking like any wave advantage, which is not unusual here. The AM/PM scoring splits for the past five years from the Course Info Page on Betsperts Golf:

News and Notes

• I’m not familiar with this course (cause I’m American), but I’m excited to learn

• Cool little note on the Open that I had no idea about

• This has to be frustrating for some of the tour players who are just grinding it out. Still just a wild stat.

As always, bet responsibly, have fun, and please say only nice things about this tournament and course.

Twitter | YouTube | Website | The Rabbit Hole