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β Clarity JugI have great news... Scottie Scheffler is NOT in the field this week for the 3M Open. Back from Britain, we head to Blaine, Minnesota, for the seventh time. A rather new event on the calendar, it has developed quite a following from the fans (and bettors) in a rather short amount of time. I know from an RTL perspective; we had a wonderful win last year with Jhonny Vegas at +8000 (80-1) on a summer Sunday. The year before that, we touted JT Poston, who finished runner-up. Looking at the field of 156, I see a couple more very nice "fits" for this fun TPC layout. If the PGA TOUR has done one thing right when it comes to the schedule, it forces the middle tier to play hard in regular-season events. Signature status, Tour Championship exemptions, and Ryder Cup consideration have everyone's undivided attention. We know what to expect from Scottie Scheffler at this point, but for the rest of these guys, we need some clarity. Take Chris Gotterup, for example. Media may ask what his motivation is this week after an epic career run across the Atlantic? Gotterup is twenty-third on the FedEx Cup list and twenty-second in Ryder Cup points. A trip to the Tour Championship (without starting strokes) gives you a chance to win the whole thing and gets you into all four majors next season. The Ryder Cup opportunity for a kid from the Jersey shore answers itself. That's just one easy example. Just two weeks left to get into the playoffs, and 28 players between 70-100 on the FEC points list are here at TPC Twin Cities. There are another 15 on the list from 50-70, trying to secure signature status, and seven more from 30-50, attempting to make a move toward Atlanta or solidify signature status next year. These tour players have a ton to compete for right now. Don't forget, this is the first year we cut TOUR cards at the top 100! After the next two weeks, those looking to earn status outside the top 70 don't tee it up again until mid-September. Blaine, Florida..?Minnesota is commonly referred to as the land of sky blue waters. An interesting choice when you consider it sits thousands of miles from any ocean. But did you know, there are 11,842 lakes in the Gopher State?!?!? Believe it or not, all of them are not inside the routing of TPC Twin Cities. Just 27 water penalty areas around this layout, which annually competes for the most wet golf balls in one week on the PGA TOUR. A par 71 scorecard covering 7,431 yards, 15 holes have water in play. Keep it dry this week, and you'll most likely join the weekend's top 65 and ties. Those men will have a chance at $8.4 million and those coveted FEC points. A cool $1.5 million goes to the winner of this wet landscape. TPC Twin Cities is very wet in more ways than one. We know about the watery graves, but this region has received 2.5" of rain in the last week. To compound the saturated setting, seven inches of rain fell in June. Thankfully, there is just a little rain in the forecast for this upcoming week(end). We have a chance on Thursday morning before a front rolls in over the weekend. That event will change the wind direction from northwest to south. High heat and humidity will also keep the players wet. Shirts are going to be sticky as temperatures are expected in the low 90s over the weekend when these storms roll through. Perfect scoring conditions for a course that requires accuracy and favors length. Point and shoot across 18 holes as the 3M Open is a sub-par scoring fest. The average winning total across all six editions is 19 under par. 3M Open starts in...Our six winners have averaged 24 BoB scores during the week they won. Go low, or go home. To win this week, you will need to create 35+ reasonable birdie chances. One reason bettors love this event is the reward for picking the winner. I mentioned we took home 80-1 odds last year, but in the six previous editions, only one winner was under 80-1 pre-tournament. The basic skill set required is what all players on the PGA TOUR possess. Pick a trending iron player who wields a hot putter, and you'll be there on Sunday afternoon. I joked in the subtitle of this section about Florida. The Sunshine State has its fair share of lakes, but the best comp courses for this TPC test are found in Florida. PGA National, Innisbrook, and TPC Sawgrass all favor players who excel T2G. Another interesting factor that gets overlooked is that Blaine is 1,000 feet above sea level. That adds approximately 1.2% of ball flight. Combine that with hot, humid air, and the ball will be flying at TPCTC. What reads like a birdiefest, does require an above-average amount of accuracy. Not many shoot-outs on the PGA TOUR have an average cutline of -1 when the winning score is in the high teens. That's a large part of the fun, especially when you look at the finish. You can score on the closing holes, but feel a little pressure, and you might get wet. Four of the final five holes have water in play. When you consider all of the regular PGA TOUR events, this one always stands out in my mind. The course requires solid ball striking and scoring. Don't get me wrong, this isn't Riviera or Muirfield Village, but it does create scoring volatility, and we love that. Especially when many of these men have their entire year hanging in the balance. Let's dive into who those final contenders might be. With just two weeks left, the men will be feeling more pressure than usual to close this one out. Three traitsI've broken down the field and their chances to win by ranking them for their ability to do these three things. The first player characteristic I'm looking for is solid tee to green (T2G) play. Very rarely do we categorize players for their ability OTT, on approach, and around the green. Most weeks, we favor one or maybe two of these traits, but very rarely all three. Most major weeks T2G can be a qualifying consideration, but not a regular TOUR event. Players have to avoid double bogeys at TPCTC, and the best way to manage their scorecard is to keep the ball in play. Survive the whole week without a penalty stroke and you will have certainly done something. There's a ton of trouble here off the tee and around the greens. Both sides start with three holes where water is in play. Of the three skills, approach still carries the most influence, but don't discount the other two. The second skill I'm looking for is an aggregate scoring analytic. The six winners of the 3M Open have gained an average of 10 strokes on the par 4s. The three par 5s have a 43% birdie rate. If you birdie them all, you're still only 12 under par on Sunday. Since none of the par 3s have a birdie rate over 20%, if you plan to reach 20 under par, then you'd better play the par 4s well. Tony Finau gained 13 strokes on the par 4s the year he won. Five of the six winners gained more than nine strokes on the field playing the 4s. The strokes gained par ranges where players differentiated themselves the most display the most difficult par 4 range of 450-500.
Don't forget, we have five par 4s under 425 yards. 3M officials have been known to set some of them up to be reachable by a majority of the field. Any player in good form who can score on a 350-yard and a 507-yard 4 has my attention. Remember the comp courses I mentioned. Innisbrook or PGA National would be strong strokes gained par 4 scoring courses. Championship venues are won by playing the 4s well, and although TPC Twin Cities won't be hosting any US Opens in the coming decade, it does require you to manage these 11 tests. My third tool needed to win the 3M is the putter. Making 20+ sub-par scores kind of requires a hot putter, but I'll mention it because with the heightened pressure of the playoffs looming, the flatstick becomes even more important. Perusing through the most influential traits based purely on data and making putts from inside 10 feet, converting 20-footers, etc. are all at the top of the list. When you consider the soft course conditions, rolling the rock becomes an even bigger factor as you just cannot make bogeys or worse. All of those par-saving putts under six or seven feet are magnified. The greens are Bentgrass and in beautiful shape. The average green size is 6,500 sq/ft. That's about 1k sq/ft bigger than last week, but the way the TOUR tucks pin locations, you have to keep it close T2G and then convert. Five of the six winners have made over 300 feet of putts en route to winning: Vegas (308'), Hodges (353'), Finau (306'), Champ (364'), and Thompson (340'). That's a significant trend and one I would factor in. Past TPCTC positive experience weighs in for having the ability to convert that many feet. To put it in perspective, when Scottie won at the CJ Cup at TPC Craig Ranch he made 321' of putts and he shot 31 under par! We're looking for 20 under and still need to cover the same amount of distance. This is NOT a week where our betting card can play on team no-putt. That's why a player like Sam Burns is the favorite. Burns is sixteenth in the field for strokes gained putting and fifth for SG:APP. I'm not staying with Sam after two disappointing weeks overseas, but you get the point. T2G, par 4s, and the putter are the three traits I'm favoring to find our next outright of the season. We have had some incredible deep runs over the last few weeks, but it's time to go back-to-back at the 3M. We picked Vegas last year, and we can certainly do it again. The dog days of summer events on the PGA TOUR are upon us. Full fields for a couple of weeks and no Scheffler. Both of those factors favor our level of research at Read The Line. Outright Winners - 3M OpenPlacements, Props, and H2H's...* - Odds can change from site to site. Make sure you shop around before making each bet. Even though a bet is listed, it may have changed since the newsletter was published. FanDuel (FD), Caesars (CS), DraftKings (DK), BetMGM (BM), bet365 (B3), Bet Rivers (BR), ESPNBet (EB), Fanatics (FA) One & Doneβ DFS Strategyβ Read between the linesThe best place to follow news about Read The Line is right here! Thank you for beinga member of Read The Line.β
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