DeepDiveGolf - David Bieleski 
Before jumping into the 3M Open preview, there is something that must be said… WHAT A WEEK! The Open Championship delivered a thrilling finish with Xander Schauffele emerging with his 2nd major championship.
That moved Xander into a rare group of golfers to finish top 10 in all majors with multiple major wins in a single season. That list reads: Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Jordan Spieth, and Xander Schauffele. Elite company to be keeping!
It was a very successful week for DeepDiveGolf, as we posted our most profitable week of the year!
We had 4 players in the top 10, with Russell Henley 125/1 (240/1 on exchanges) and Matthew Jordan 350/1 notable longshots. But let’s not forget 1000/1 shot Shubhankar Sharma, 6 shots off the lead Saturday before finishing 19th.
We did suffer a tad of heartbreak with Lowry. He saw a 2nd Open Championship slip through his fingers. The R&A probably underestimated the extent of the weather, with Lowry livid he couldn’t reach par 4s after hitting driver-driver. But that is the nature of Royal Troon, and nature often bites back there.
As premium members know, we often target match-ups in the weekend for two reasons. First, we gather more data by that point of how golfers are playing and how they accumulated their scores. Secondly, that we also have a firmer picture of what has been successful on the course.
And, the final round match-ups were on fire! We went 4/5 on Saturday followed by 5/5 on Sunday for a clean sweep! The latter culminated in cashing a 21/1 parlay on the ladder.
After such an amazing week, let’s preview the 3M Open for the second to last PGA Tour event before the FedEx Cup Playoffs and find you more winners!
3M Open Preview Course Analysis
TPC Twin Cities has hosted this event for 5 years now, so we should have sufficient data to form a picture of what is required this week.
At 7,431 yards for a par 71, the course is certainly long enough. That is mitigated somewhat by the course being played at altitude. Still, there are 5 par 4s stretching over 450 yards. 2 of those are over 500 yards, with a couple of 590+ yard par 5s for good measure.
However, there is also water in play on 15 of the 18 holes. That results in the course ranking top 6 for penalties (0.72 per golfer per round!) and top 9 for reloads in all editions since the events inception in 2019. Which leads to an interesting quirk in the data.
See, the numbers actually suggest driving accuracy is the best predictor of success here. And I think that is a simplistic answer. Of course, if you are accurate off the tee and avoid the water you are more likely to make the cut. Therefore, contributing to the dataset.
If you trusted that number on face value, you’d also miss some of the names who have won here. And that is golfers like Matthew Wolff (over Bryson DeChambeau), Cameron Champ, and Tony Finau. That hardly screams accuracy off the tee, but more bombs away.
My take for DFS would be you need a little bit of both distance and accuracy within your line-ups. The accuracy plays for safety, with some longer hitters who possess high upside.
The other key is the very concentrated nature of approach shots here. 40% of approach shots occur from 175-225 yards. 65% of approach shots are from 150 yards. Those are highly disproportionate number, and a metric we can deploy to our advantage.
TPC Twin Cities Course Comps
Firstly, it is worthy to note for our 3M Open preview that prior course history is not very predictive at TPC Twin Cities. The course ranks in the bottom half of all regular PGA Tour courses for how “sticky” form here is. That is quite easily explained. There is inherent volatility given the large amount of water in-play. Additionally, the field tends to be quite transient with a lower prize purse and FedEx Cup points on offer. It is also somewhat of the last-chance saloon. Being the 2nd to last event before the FedEx Cup Playoffs, there are often a number of players desperately trying to keep their cards for the next season.
PGA National rates as a strong form guide. The Cognizant (formerly Honda) Classic host has the highest number of approach shots between 175-200 yards on the PGA Tour. TPC Twin Cities ranks 2nd in that category. It is another course which has favoured strong drivers, with plenty of water waiting to catch wayward drives.
The next two course comps are also linked with Tony Finau, who has found success both at Detroit Golf Club and Vidanta Vallarta. Both rank highly for strong drivers, but also match nicely on the key approach metrics targeting mid to long irons this week.
Finally, Keene Trace Golf Club host of the ISCO (formerly Barbasol) Championship should be considered. This course has over 20% of shots from 175-200 yards as well (3rd behind PGA National and TPC Twin Cities) and 45% of shots from over 175 yards. Strong drivers typically do well there, as well as the added benefit of plenty of field crossover and a good guide to recent form.
3M Open Preview Weather
As always, weather plays a vital part in our analysis. Not only can this provide an edge in betting, with bookmakers notoriously slow to react to any emerging weather threats, but is vital for deploying a successful DFS strategy.
The mid-term weather forecast models for TPC Twin Cities do show signs a weather wave could emerge. Thursday looks quite consistent all day. The morning is quite calm, but prevailing winds of 7-10mph should arrive from 10am with gusts up to 12mph.
However, Friday does display a little more disparity. The morning should again be calm, although with gusts will be slightly higher than Thursday. From midday, winds will then increase with prevailing speeds reaching 14-17mph and gusts as high as 20-25mph. This forecast has remained consistent all week, so I do have some confidence this will be how the weather will shape out (as confident as you can be with the weather anyway!) Both Saturday and Sunday show much the same once the cut is made, with prevailing winds in the mid-teens and gusts high in the afternoon.
As such, I do expect scoring to be a little tougher this year than previous instances. A winning score around -18 is viable, consistent with a few prior editions but less than the -24 when defending champion Lee Hodges was victorious in 2023.
For DFS purposes, I don’t think the weather wave will be significant to completely exclude the contrarian wave. However, I certainly would give some precedence to a player going off Thursday PM/Friday AM if directly comparing two similar players. Remember that statistically weather has the largest affect on players priced $7,500 and under. You may want to raise that limit slightly in this calibre of field.
3M Open Preview Golf Betting Tips
If you want to read my golf betting tips for the 3M Open, you can preview these in the WinDaily Premium Discord here.
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Thank you for reading our preview and tournament analysis of the 2024 John Deere Classic. I look forward to welcoming you into the WinDaily family and celebrating many, many wins with you in 2024!
