The PGA TOUR is back in the United States this week after an exciting two-week stay in Scotland for the Scottish Open and The Open Championship. This week’s tournament is the sixth edition of the 3M Open held in Blaine, Minnesota, at TPC Twin Cities. After two hard weeks relative to par, this week will be back to a low-scoring competition with birdie and eagle opportunities all around the course.
The 3M Open doesn’t boast nearly the star power as the last two weeks, especially with the Olympics on the horizon next week. However, it still represents a great opportunity for rising stars to step up and gives non-superstars on the PGA TOUR a chance to earn valuable FedExCup points. After the Olympics, there is only one more event before the FedExCup Playoffs start, and some PGA TOUR cards are secured for next season.
The field does include a few big names led by Tony Finau, Sahith Theegala, and Akshay Bhatia looking to bounce back from disappointments at Royal Troon last week. Sam Burns and Billy Horschel were in contention at The Open and will make the quick turnaround to play this week. Some of the exciting young golfers breaking into the PGA TOUR will also tee it up this week, including Nick Dunlap, who won last week’s Barracuda Championship, Michael Thorbjornsen, Luke Clanton, and Neal Shipley.
The course the field will face this week has hosted the event since it began on the PGA TOUR in 2019. Last year’s champion Lee Hodges is in the field along with past winners Finau and Cameron Champ. In general, the par 71 allows for low scoring but also has plenty of risk/reward holes that punish players for bad misses. The course has one of the highest “double-bogey or worse” rates on the PGA TOUR, along with one of the highest birdie rates.
The layout includes 27 different bodies of water with plenty of chances to get wet if you don’t get your shot just right. The course also plays as one of the longer tracks in the regular rotation, so length and accuracy off the tee are extremely important, as indicated by Champ and Finau taking home post wins. Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee and Total Driving are two important stats to consider this week in addition to the regular Strokes Gained: Approach and the ability to go on a run and pile up birdies in a hurry.
The focus of this post is strong GPP options who have lower ownership projections than their potential performance. Finding high-leverage plays is critical for GPP success, so the picks here go against the grain, looking for under-owned options.
All Strokes Gained metrics referenced are from the Rabbit Hole.
Usually, I rely heavily on the Stroked Gained Model in FantasyLabs, which is very predictive of results. I also tend to lean into players who excel in Strokes Gained: Approach, which is more sustainable week-to-week than a hot putter.
Since these are GPP picks, we can accept more risk in exchange for getting a higher ceiling. High-risk, high-reward options with low ownership create the “boom-or-bust” style lineups that often lead to large-field success. To find guidance for all contest types, check out our full Daily Fantasy Golf coverage each week.
No matter what type of format you prefer, be sure to use the FantasyLabs PGA Models to help you make the best choices. These models use stats and simulations to highlight different players’ strengths and weaknesses. A few critical new stats for GPP play are Perfect% and SimLeverage, which are further explained here.
As you dig into the numbers, you can enjoy the many tools FantasyLabs offers, including the Lineup Optimizer, which effortlessly creates up to 300 lineups. Alternatively, you can use the Lineup Builder if you prefer a more hands-on approach.
Check out my top picks in each price range listed below.
Editors note: SimLeverage and Perfect% numbers may change after this piece is published. Be sure to check the PGA Models for any updates to the sims.
High-Priced PGA DFS Picks
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Unless otherwise noted, all Strokes Gained metrics referenced in this article come via the Rabbit Hole.
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Tony Finau $10,500
Finau is the big fish in this week’s small pond (or does it have to be a lake since it’s Minnesota?). He has the highest salary but also the highest ceiling, median and floor projections in the field. He also has the best odds of winning and the top Perfect% by a wide margin. Finau is in over 33% of perfect lineups in our sims, while no other player is in more than 27%. Despite being the favorite in many ways, his ownership projection is only the third-highest. With such a high Perfect% compared to his ownership projection, he brings the fourth-highest SimLeverage.
I featured Finau in my picks last week, so I got the burn after a rough Round 2 at Royal Troon resulted in a missed cut. After opening with a solid even-par round, he crashed and burned with a +10 on Friday on the tough side of the draw.
Overall, this season, he has been much better than that round showed, with 11 top 25s in 18 events with just two missed cuts. Before last week’s letdown, he had reeled off three straight top-10 finishes, including a tie for third at the U.S. Open. Over his last 30 rounds, he leads this field in Total Strokes Gained and Strokes Gained: Approach.
In addition to his strong form before last week, Finau has an excellent course history at TPC Twin Cities. He not only won this event in 2022, but he also finished in the top 10 in 2020 and 2023, and in the top 30 in each of the five years the event has been held.
There are other places to differentiate this week–don’t overthink Finau, who is having a great season and has such a great record at this track.
Luke Clanton $9,300
Paying over $9,000 for an amateur would have been almost unimaginable for the last few years, but this season, we’ve seen several young amateurs step up and produce plenty of fantasy goodness. This week, Clanton is high-priced, which may be why the general public is staying away, giving him an ownership projection under 8%.
Clanton is tied for the second-most Pro Trends in the field with six. He has the eighth-highest Perfect% and ninth-highest ceiling projection in the field, but his ownership projection is the 27th-highest in the field, giving him the fourth-highest leverage and the second-highest SimLeverage in the field.
In each of his four PGA TOUR appearances, the 20-year-old Clanton has made the cut. He finished T2 at the John Deere Classic earlier this month in a similar low-scoring tournament. He followed that up with another strong showing at the ISCO Championship, where he finished T37 before taking last week off. Over his 16 rounds, he ranks first in the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and second in Total Strokes Gained.
Clanton has plenty of upside and potential long-term, and this week, and since he’s going so under-owned he’s worth paying up for as a leverage play, according to our models.
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Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Erik Van Rooyen $8,600
I’ve had Van Rooyen in these picks on a regular basis this season, and he’s a good leverage option again this week with a high ceiling at this salary. Of the nine golfers in the $8,000s, EVR has the third-highest median, ceiling, and floor projections and the third-highest Projected Plus/Minus. His ownership projection is just under 15%, but since he has the highest Perfect% in this salary bracket, he has the third-highest SimLeverage in the $8,000s.
Van Rooyen has made the cut in seven of his last eight events and 14 of his 18 events this season with eight top 25s and four top 10s, including a T6 three weeks ago at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Over the last 50 rounds, EVR ranks 10th in the field in Total Strokes Gained and in the top 35 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach. Over his last 20 rounds, he has heated back up and ranks sixth in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and 11th in Total Strokes Gained.
While he hasn’t had great results at this track in his career, it should be a home-field event for him since he attended the nearby University of Minnesota and won the 2012 Minnesota State Amateur. He is skipping the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics to tee it up this week, so this obviously is an important event for him. It’s also important because he’s on the bubble for the playoffs, starting the week in 56th on the FedExCup Playoffs.
Nick Dunlap $8,400
Dunlap has the highest SimLeverage of all the players under $9,000 this week and the third-highest in the field. His ownership projection is extremely low despite him coming off his second win of the season last week at the Barracuda Championship. At the start of the season, the 20-year-old Dunlap won at The American Express as an amateur, becoming the first amateur in 33 years to win on the PGA TOUR, and his win last week made him the first player in PGA TOUR history to win as both a pro and an amateur in the same season.
While it hasn’t been a straight line of always contending for Dunlap, he has had a high ceiling with top 20s at the Rocket Mortgage, the Texas Children’s Houston Open, and the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. He finished his win last week with a sizzling 62 that vaulted him to the top, and if he can build on that form, he could contend again this week.
Dunlap ranks 10th in this field in Strokes Gained: Approach over the last 24 rounds has proven he can go low in a hurry to emerge on top of lighter fields. Since he didn’t earn any FedExCup points for his amateur win, he was outside playoff position until last week’s win, which moved him from No. 95 to No. 64 in the standings.
Like Clanton, he’ll be making his debut at this event, so there is definitely risk involved in playing Dunlap. However, both youngsters offer a high enough ceiling with their potential and low ownership projections to be worth playing in GPP formats.
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Value PGA DFS Picks
Rico Hoey $7,500
If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve been in on Mac Meissner for the last several weeks, and I still like him for cash games this week, even though his ownership has surged too high for GPP contests. As a lower-ownership alternative in this price range, Hoey stands out with the fourth-highest SimLeverage of all players with salaries under $8,400 and the ninth-highest in the entire field.
Hoey has caught fire over the last four events after struggling through the first part of his rookie year on the PGA TOUR, missing 10 of 15 cuts. He closed with the best Final Round of the day in Detroit to surge to a T6 for his first career top 10. He has stayed hot since then with a T26 at the John Deere Classic, a T2 at the ISCO Championship after losing in a playoff, and a T8 last week at the Barracuda Championship.
His hot streak has been fueled by good work across his bag. He leads the field in Total Strokes Gained over the last 12 rounds and ranks in the top 25 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach, and Strokes Gained: Putting. He has a very solid history at comp courses and should shine in this field. He’s up to No. 103 in the FedExCup standings and could push to make the playoffs with a strong showing this week and at the Wyndham in two weeks.
Kevin Yu $7,200
Yu has the highest SimLeverage of all players under $8,400 and the highest Leverage of all players in the $7,000s. He has an extremely low ownership projection of under 3%, which makes him a strong contrarian pick at this price point.
While he does come to TPC Twin Cities off a pair of missed cuts at the Scottish Open and the Barracuda Championship, he finished on the cut line in both events, only missing the weekend by one stroke. Before those two close calls, he had run off five straight made cuts dating back to a T4 at the Myrtle Beach Classic.
Yu’s statistical profile is pretty straightforward as a Strokes Gained: Approach specialist. He ranks third in the field in that category over the last 30 rounds and also in the last 12 rounds. Yu ranks fourth in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green during that span, but what holds him back from high finishes every week is his putting. He has shown signs that he may be coming around, though, gaining strokes putting in two of his last three starts. If he can get his flat stick to cooperate, his shotmaking is strong enough for him to contend in this kind of field at a low-scoring track like this one.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Ben Kohles $6,800
Kohles has the highest SimLeverage of the 97 players under $7,000 this week. The veteran has proven to be a cut-making machine this summer, making eight cuts in his last nine tournaments, highlighted by a runner-up finish at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson behind Taylor Pendrith (another good but popular play this week).
Last year, Kohles won the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year honors and has made a strong case to stay on the PGA TOUR, ranking 80th in the FedExCup race coming into the week. He is in the top five on the entire PGA TOUR in driving accuracy and has no glaring holes in his well-balanced game. He should be able to avoid the water and leave himself short approaches to many holes, which is another place where he shines.
Kohles has the third-highest Perfect% under $7,000, so even though his floor is low, he’s worth taking a shot on with his extremely low ownership projection. If he continues his streak of playing weekends, he’ll be a great way to save salary and allow you to stuff in more stars on the rest of your roster.
Brice Garnett $6,400
Garnett has a good track record at TPC Twin Cities and is looking to play his way into the playoffs, starting the week ranked No. 83. He has made the cut in all three of his career appearances on this course, highlighted by a T16 in 2021.
He has been boom-or-bust this season, but that works for GPP constructions. His ceiling is extremely high, as he showed by winning the Puerto Rico Open in March in his first PGA TOUR event of the season. Since then, he has added a top 20 at the RBC Heritage and top 35s at the PGA Championship and the John Deere Classic.
Garnett ranks in the top 25 in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach over his last 20 rounds and has proven capable of having spike weeks where he contends in lighter fields like this one. The 40-year-old from Missouri is a high-risk sleeper this week, but playing a Garnett in Minnesota just feels right, and he brings enough upside to be a strong differentiator with his ownership projection under 1%.
