After a 2 week vacation overseas, the PGA Tour heads back stateside for this week’s 3M Open. It might not be a major or signature field event, but the competition remains the same for us PGA DFS players and prop bettors and there’s money to be made this week.
Here in this preview, we’ll be going over everything you need to know for your prop and betting exposure.That’ll include course details, analytics via Betthenumber, key stats, weather and our round 1 free play. Let’s see if we can cash out this time around!
Last week’s Prop recap:
Keegan Bradley Over 3 Bogeys or Worse ✔️
Justin Rose Over 3 Bogeys or worse ❌
Dustin Johnson Over 3 Birdies or Better 🅿️
Akshay Bhatia Over 3 Birdies or Better ❌
Season-Long Hit rate: 33-25-2 year-to-date (56.8% hit rate)
1-2-1 wasn’t quite what we were hoping for on our Open Championship slip. The constant rains Thursday made the course play a bit harder than expected which made the overs on BOBs a bit tougher to cash. Keegan went over for us on his bogey line but even with the harder conditions Rose went under his line with some excellent play. Not ideal, but we move onto this week and try to see if we can bounce back!
Tournament details:
Field size – 156 players
Cut – Top 65 and ties
Returning Champ – Jhonattan Vegas (-17)
Past Champs – Hodges, Finau, Champ, Thompson, Wolff
Purse – $8.4 million
Course Details:
TPC Twin Cities – Blaine, MN
Par – 71
Length – 7,431 yards
Avg Green Size – 6,500 sq. ft
Green type – Bentgrass
Avg Fairway Width – 35.6 yards
Designer – Arnold Palmer, Wenzloff reno
Number of bunkers – 72
Water Hazards – 15
Rough – 4” Bluegrass/Fescue
Stat Averages from the last 3 years at TPC Twin Cities:
We see this course yearly as a regular part of the PGA Tour schedule, so we have plenty of data to pull. As such, here are the last 3 years of data from TPC Twin Cities per the BTN course page.
2024 Prop Based Averages:
If we narrow down those averages to just last year, and specifically the prop categories we can bet on pick ‘em sites, here’s what we get! I included the round by round scores to show some of the variance we got with course conditions changing.
Driving Bias:
While I’ve seen this course quoted as a “bombers” course before, the analytics don’t exactly back that up. TPC Twin Cities grades out as a 5.5/10 in the “bomber’s paradise” ranking and only has 11 true “driver holes”. Hitting it long is helpful, especially on the par 5s and drivable par 4s, but it isn’t everything.
Approach distribution:
Players will face 12+ shots per round from 125 to 225 yards, the most I’ve seen for a course all year. Mid to long irons are a necessity around this track, and adding some emphasis on those shots is going to be a good idea.
How to model at the 2025 3M Open:
In order to model at the 2025 3M Open and find the top plays of the week, BTN is using 5 “key stats” in their modeling. Those stats are listed below, as well as the top 5 players overall when combining everything together.
SG Off the Tee
- BTN is using SG off the tee to capture a player’s driving form heading into this week. The focus on overall driving makes plenty of sense given the correlations between accuracy and the leaderboard here since 2020 and the amount of water hazards that need to be avoided
SG Approach
- Iron play is included this week as per usual, and is arguably the most important stat category that a model can include. Form gives us an idea of who is striping it recently
APP 100-190 yards
- The mid iron range is worn out at TPC Twin Cities, so adding extra emphasis to this range could prove fruitful on a course like this
Scrambling
- Scrambling might not immediately come to mind at a birdie fest, but surprisingly it’s been correlated to success at this track. Perhaps it’s the short par 4s or Par 5s where proper chipping is required to get up and down for birdie where that aspect becomes especially important
SG Putting: 6-15 Feet
- The 6 to 15 foot range is the most prominent for birdie production and hence where players can separate from the field at a birdie fest like this. Finding the best putters in this bucket will help us find players capable of filling it up on the greens this week
Round 1 Game Plan
Now that we’ve got the course and modeling down, let’s turn to the prop side and try to find some value for Round 1. First, let’s check the weather and see what sort of conditions players will be facing Thursday.
Thursday’s weather forecast: (HRRR model via windy.com)
Weather wise, it’s as close to ideal as we are going to get. Not only are winds low, but it looks clear rain wise and temperatures will be mild. On top of the weather tomorrow being ideal, the area has gotten some rain this week and the course should be extremely soft for Rounds 1. In fact, there’s even a chance we get lift clean and place if the course is still a bit soggy. As such, I am projecting for at least a -1 scoring average, if not something closer to -1.5 for the day with players getting perfect conditions to attack pin locations.
Round 1 Free Play:
Our free play for this week is going to be this 2.75x slip on Prize Picks, taking advantage of what should be some very scorable conditions and some correlation.
Cameron Champ Under 69.5 Strokes
- Cam is a past champ at this course and has elite tier course history even outside of that with 12th and 16th place finishes since then. With around a -1 to -1.5 scoring average projected, Cam would need to gain a half stroke to stroke to the field to cover which is reasonable to ask in my opinion given the history and the fact that the form has been pretty hot too. Outside of the missed cut at the Barracuda (which is a weird format anyways) he had come in with 4 straight T27s or better and was average over a stroke gained to the field over that stretch.
Keith Mitchell Over 4.5 Birdies or Better
- Keith is the #6 birdie or better percentage player on all the tour, and with his elite course history I like this over on BOBs. He has two T5 finishes at this event and with conditions being perfect for aggressive golf, I think the BOB average could end up in the 4.3-4.5 range for the field. If so, all Keith needs is an above average day and about 0.5 BOBs gained to the field to cover, which is well within his range of outcomes with his elite tier ranking in the category. He’s also -130 juice for the over on sportsbooks like Draftkings so there’s a tad bit of line value on this spot.
That’s all for this week’s blog. Best of luck with all of your exposure, and let’s have a week!
On top of the free articles every week, make sure to tune into my YT channel – GSLUKEDFS, for all of the shows throughout the weekend! (Rounds 2-4)
