Pretty solid field this week in the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. metro area.

TPC Twin Cities plays 7,434 yards and is a Par 71.

The defending champ is Matthew Wolff, the great 21 year old from OK. State.

Last week, despite shooting a 75 on Sunday on a very tough track with gusting winds 10-15 at Muirfield Village, 25 year old Spaniard Jon Rahm was victorious for the 4th time in his young PGA career. His other 3 victories came at the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, the 2018 Career Builder Challenge in California, and the 2019 Zurich Classic of New Orleans where he was teamed up with Ryan Palmer, who ironically was in the final group Sunday with Rahm and finished 2nd. Rahm finished -9 and Palmer was 3 back at -6. Rahm looked to have clinched the tournament on 16 when he chipped in on the Par 3 from behind the green in thick rough in what was an impossibly great chip. However, he had moved the ball slightly when he was addressing it with his club behind the ball and was assessed a 2 shot penalty. But he persevered through that and emerged with the victory and a congratulatory fist bump from the great Jack Nicklaus.

Key players in the field include Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bubba Watson Tony Finau, Harris English, Lucas Glover, Wolff, young Vanderbilt stud Will Gordon, Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers, the Little Brit, Tommy Fleetwood, Charley Hoffman, and another Vandy guy, Luke List, who’s getting closer every week. So pretty strong field, Next week is the WGC-Fed Ex St.Jude Invitational, so there will be a loaded field in Memphis at TPC Southwind. Koepka is the defending champion there. The following week, August 6th-9th, is the PGA Championship. So huge 2 weeks coming up. As stated in recent columns, the 102nd PGA Championship will be played at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco without fans. I’m getting used to that though. The tournaments are still thrilling and there are some fans applauding from their houses on the courses, It’s cool.

Key Holes on TPC Twin Cities

There are several long par 4’s and par 5’s on this track.

No.3 is a 500 yard Par 4; No.6 is a 596 yard par 5,; No.9 is a 490 yard Par 4; No.12 is a 593 yard Par 5,; No.13 is a 228 yard Par 3, and No.18 is a 595 yard Par 5.

The rough will be at about 3 inches deep, so driving accuracy is at a premium. Greens will be stimping at 12, so pretty quick. There’s some rain forecast on Saturday, hopefully it’ll be brief if it happens at all. . More on that below. Pretty hot in Minneapolis-St. Paul this weekend.

Weather

Thursday, Sunny, 82, Winds 10-15 ESE MPH. Friday, Partly Sunny, 93, winds 15 S MPH. Saturday, 60% chance of T storms, 90, Winds SSW 13 MPH. Sunday, 89, Partly Sunny, wind WNW 10 MPH. So wind will be a factor all 4 days.

TV:

Thursday-Friday: 1:30-5:30 PM CT, Golf Channel; Saturday-Sunday, 12-2 PM CT, Golf Channel, 2-5 PM CT, CBS.

Winner

I’m going to take the 21 year old defending champion. With deference to Warren Zevon, I like the Werewolf of Minneapolis this weekend. Give me the Simi Valley, California native.

Matthew Wolff

Sleeper

I’m going to take my man, the 23 year old from Davidson, North Carolina by way of Vanderbilt University.

Will Gordon

Tomorrow

Major League Baseball season commences with the Yankees @ the defending World Champion Nationals at 6 PM CT on E-S-P-N, and the Giants @ the Dodgers at 9 PM CT on ESPN. Preview and Predictions on the blog tomorrow.

The Yankees, Dodgers and Nationals are 3 of the favorites to win it all in this 60 game season with 10 teams, 5 from each League, making the playoffs as usual. Ready for some baseball.

Can the Atlanta Braves win it all this year? It’s been since 1995 and our Braves are talented and hungry. I know Walter and many others hope that’ll happen. More on it tomorrow.

Travis

When I was writing sports for the Durham Morning Herald back in 1990, I would be driving back from some small town in North Carolina to Durham on some back road after covering a Friday Night High School Football game. It would be about 1 in the morning and I had just written another Friday Night football story in the antiquated press boxes of the small towns where you basically had to walk/run into the neighborhood to find a phone line to send your story in with a 10 PM deadline approaching and it was 9:50. .A lot of scrambling back then. It was definitely a different era.

Driving back to my apartment, this classic would come on the radio sometimes. I thought to myself, maybe one day this’ll happen. I don’t know if it has, but still trying. But does it matter though? Working hard and being a good person with all that encompasses makes someone a success in my opinion. Those qualities are the most important.