Major championship season is complete, and the members of the PGA Tour are ready to turn their attention to the chase for the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Following Xander Schauffele’s victory at the Open Championship last Sunday, the tour returns stateside for the 3M Open, which tees off Thursday at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minn.
Don’t expect Schauffele, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Northern Ireland star Rory McIlroy or any of golf’s elite players to compete in Minnesota. Apart from the fact that many of them are preparing for the Olympic men’s golf tournament next week in Paris, they’re by and large safely in the FedEx Cup playoffs that begin in a few short weeks.
But Billy Horschel will be back on the course right after settling for a tie for second at The Open, where he held a one-stroke lead through 54 holes.
The 37-year-old is an eight-time winner on tour and the 2014 FedEx Cup champion, but he’s trying to move on from the closest miss at a major of his career.
“When I commit to something I try to hold to that commitment unless crazy circumstances arise,” Horschel said when asked if he considered withdrawing this week. “When you’re playing well, you want to continue to play well. Yes, I’m coming halfway around the world … but confidence-wise I want to continue to build on that confidence, I want to continue to put myself back in that chance of winning.”
The tournament also features Sahith Theegala, the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 11 in the world; Nick Dunlap, the 20-year-old who picked up his second win of the season at last week’s alternate event, the Barracuda Championship; and Tony Finau, No. 19 in the world.
Finau has every reason to feel fondness for TPC Twin Cities. His victory at the 2022 3M Open was the third of his six career wins on tour. He’s made the cut in all five editions since the tournament began in 2019 and has two additional top-10s.
“Haven’t seen (the course) yet, but I do expect it to be a little softer than maybe it has been in the past,” Finau said, commenting on the rain the area has received. “If the weather holds, which hopefully it does, not too much rain, it will still be firm enough I think by Saturday and Sunday.”
The defending champion is Lee Hodges, who not only won his first PGA Tour title here last year but ran away for a seven-stroke victory, shooting a tournament-record 24-under 260.
“I just remember Lee playing incredible golf all week,” said Finau, who tied for seventh in 2023. “I was in a position to try and catch him on the weekend and anytime I made a run, it looked like — I just remember him making birdies right behind me.”
But Hodges has not had a top-10 finish on tour ever since. He enters the week ranked 73rd in the FedEx Cup standings; the cutoff for the first leg of the playoffs next month is the top 70.
“Probably mentally I’ve been pretty hard on myself this year, but last couple weeks I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better in just trying to stack good days together, trying to be better every single day,” Hodges said.
–Field Level Media
