Fantasy Golf Predictions
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2022 3M Open
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2022 3M Open
3M Open Fantasy Preview
The records tumbled as Cameron Smith clinched the first major title of his increasingly-impressive young career so far.
He recorded five straight birdies on the back nine on Sunday at St Andrews and six in total to card 30 – the lowest half-round score from a British Open champion.
His winning mark of -20 was the lowest ever shot to win the Open at St Andrews, and he became the first player to win the British Open and Players Championship in the same season since Jack Nicklaus in 1978.
Smith also ended the Australian wait to lift the Claret Jug that had lingered since 1993, so all told it was a week to be incredibly proud of for Smith, his team and his home country in general.
As for Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland, they will probably be thinking about what might have been after entering the final round as the joint 54-hole leaders. Meanwhile, Cameron Young continues to impress in his rookie year, and his second-placed finish followed his T3 effort at the PGA Championship….outstanding stuff indeed for a relative newcomer to the sport’s top tier.
That’s all the majors wrapped up in 2022, and so we’re now on the downslope to the end of the season and the meat of the FedEx Cup race….the TOUR Championship is now just five weeks away.
First, there’s points to be won in the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities in Minnesota.
Last Week’s Fantasy Results
Oh – So – Close! Last week we ran with Rory who put up an absolute display most of the week but couldn’t outrun the hot hand of Cam Smith.
Rory put up 3 rounds in the 60’s before is 70 on Sunday which left him a few shots behind Cam in the end.
Overall, 6 of our 7 main picks made the cut into the weekend and even our mid-tier pick Spieth made some noise hanging around to finish T8.
3M Open Field
The traditional post British Open swing is in full force this week.
Tony Finau, Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im are the top three in the betting followed by Adam Hadwin, and then a handful of PGA TOUR maidens make up the rest of the top-tier – Sahith Theegala, Maverick McNealy, Davis Riley and Cameron Tringale chief among them.
Tom Hoge will be hoping to get back into form, while the likes of J.T. Poston and Mark Hubbard will be looking to continue their fine performances of late in friendly conditions.
The defending champion, Cameron Champ, will look to go back-to-back at TPC Twin Cities, while 2020 winner Michael Thompson will be hoping that lightning strikes twice.
This Week’s Course Preview
The fact that the three winners of the 3M Open to date have been priced at 80/1, 125/1 and 125/1 with the sportsbooks confirms one thing – TPC Twin Cities is a golf course where pretty much anyone can thrive.
Why? Well, because there’s wide open fairways, large Bentgrass greens and few real obstacles to overcome – there’s a smattering of bunkers and some sumptuous water features on the real estate, but these aren’t really in play unless your ball striking is way off.
Designed by Arnold Palmer and Tom Lehman, it’s a decent-sized stretch at 7,431 yards for its Par 71, with a couple of 500+ yard Par 4s and a trio of 200+ yard Par 3s – unsurprisingly, these are some of the toughest on the course.
But two of the three Par 5s are a cinch – the twelfth delivering nine eagles and just 18 bogeys last year, while a quartet of Par 4s in the 410-450 yard range will test the short range approach skills of many in this field.
The eighteenth is a fun risk-and-reward Par 5, so who knows what we’ll have in store as this tournament reaches its business end come Sunday.
Weather Forecast for Blaine, MN
It looks set to be a warm old week in Blaine, Minnesota, although the locals – and the players in the 3M Open field – will be disappointed to learn that there’s some rain in the forecast for the weekend.
But it’s hot and sunny right through until Thursday, with sunshine and winds of around 8-12mph the predicted conditions for the opening round and into Friday. Temperatures will peak at a comfy 89˚F.
As for the weekend, scattered showers feature heavily in various different forecasts for the area….but will they arrive, and how strong will they be?
Last Year’s Results from the 3M Open
Despite suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration, Cameron Champ blitzed a final round of 66 here last year to clinch the third PGA TOUR title of his career.
The impressive feat was made all the more outstanding by the fact he didn’t make a single birdie on a Par 5 hole on Sunday, but Champ’s closing effort of -5 was bogey-free and enough to land him a two-shot cushion over Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Jhonattan Vegas.
A truly eclectic leaderboard saw the likes of K.H. Lee, Ryan Armour and Brian Stuard hold chances heading into the final round, but Champ – who averaged 317 yards off the tee but still only ranked eighth for Driving Distance – was able to convert the ‘W’ after making just four bogeys all week.
Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the 3M Open this Week
It’s always fascinating when we have these weak field, post-major hangover events at golf courses with little to no discernible character to them. Do we go in hard with our DFS gaming, hoping that our superior knowledge proves telling, or do we tread lightly and save our bankroll for the weeks ahead? Here’s an option for both.
- PGA $80k Birdie: Here’s our shot at a big prize courtesy of this $3 contest, with the winner banking $7,500 from a 31,000 entry event. With multi-entry set at 20 teams, there is some room for manoeuvre.
- PGA $60k Dogleg: If you do want to flex your muscles a bit, here’s an interesting single entry contest – it’s all or nothing time – where you’ll take on 2,119 other players for the $10,000 top prize.
SPECIAL DEAL: NEW CUSTOMERS PLACE ANY BET AND GET A FREE BET UP TO $1000 DOLLARS IF YOUR BET LOSES – Use Code GOLFICITY at DraftKings.com
This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the 3M Open
It’s one of those ‘do we or don’t we’ weeks – how will those in the field who played at the Scottish Open fare after the roughly 3,600 mile trip home?
We have to assume it puts them at a major disadvantage, which rather opens up this tournament for those that had stayed behind in the USA.
It’s a funny event to handicap because the conditions suggest that anyone can thrive at TPC Twin Cities, and yet if you look at the list of winners and runners up – Champ, Oosthuizen, Vegas, DeChambeau – these are all elite drivers of the golf ball. That suggests that Stuard’s run to T6 12 months ago after averaging 267 yards off the tee was something of an anomaly.
With such large fairways and greens, chipping and scrambling basically goes out of the window – it’s all about knocking approaches close and/or making some putts at this slice of Minnesota real estate.
The 100-125 and 175-200 yard buckets are more regularly played from at TPC Twin Cities than the TOUR average, and so that brings to mind tracks like CC of Jackson (Sanderson Farms) and Detroit GC as potentially correlating courses.
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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the 3M Open
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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the 3M Open
Top Tier Pick #1:
Maverick McNealy (Odds: 25/1, FPPG: 73.2, GPFP: 58.57 Salary: $9,300)
This feels like one of those weeks where swerving those at the top of the card is wise.
Clearly, Matsuyama, Finau and Im have the talent to win the 3M Open, but the chips are stacked against them as they face monumental travel and an existential comedown from a major appearance at the home of golf.
Others with a point to prove or motivation in hand are perhaps more appealing, and Maverick McNealy – still chasing his first PGA TOUR title – fits the bill.
He’s a long hitter, has a solid approach game, is a streaky putter and makes birdies for fun….not a bad set-up for golf anywhere, but certainly for the agreeable conditions supplied by TPC Twin Cities.
T8 at the John Deere Classic, McNealy made the trip east for the Scottish Open – where he finished T16 in a quality field, before racing back to the U.S. and posting another top-10 finish, this time in the Barracuda Championship. The Californian looks poised to end his long wait for a win.
Key Stats:
- Birdie Average – 18th
- SG: Putting – 33rd
- Driving Distance – 45th
Top Tier Pick #2:
Cam Davis (Odds: 25/1, FPPG: 62.2, GPFP: 49.79 Salary: $8,900)
Although not involved in the mini Scottish swing, Cam Davis has stayed busy in America.
He was there or thereabouts at the Barracuda Championship, and his sixth-place finish was his third top-10 on the PGA TOUR in his last five starts.
The conditions look pretty much ideal for him at TPC Twin Cities, with its wide landing areas somewhat negating his occasionally errant driving, and as a player who cannot chip for toffee the sizable greens and fairly benign wind forecast should ensure Davis yields a high GIR count.
Solid enough with the flat stick in hand, the Australian – perhaps buoyed by his countryman Smith’s efforts at St Andrews – should be able to take full advantage of his class in both the approach yardage categories already mentioned in this preview.
Key Stats:
- Approaches from 100-125 yards – 19th
- Approaches from 175-200 yards – 30th
- Birdie Average – 60th
Mid-Tier Pick #1:
Brendan Steele (Odds: 40/1, FPPG: 56.9, GPFP: 74.00 Salary: $8,300)
The ball-striking performances of Brendan Steele have been outstanding of late.
In his last three starts, he has gained a minimum of +1.30 strokes on the field on approach, helping him to top-10s at the PGA Championship and Memorial Tournament. At the Travelers Championship, he lost -1.54 strokes with his putter and still finished T25!
Woes with the flat stick have probably been a factor for Steele’s relative under-achievement in recent years, but if he brings his recent quality of play to TPC Twin Cities he will surely set up stacks of birdie opportunities.
Whether he takes them….well, that’s anybody’s guess, but you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.
Key Stats:
- SG: Off-the-Tee – 4th
- Greens in Regulation – 21st
- Approaches from 175-200 yards – 25th
Mid-Tier Pick #2:
Matthew NeSmith (Odds: 70/1, FPPG: 56.1, GPFP: 44.90 Salary: $7,500)
The name of the game at TPC Twin Cities is to knock your ball as close as possible to the flag courtesy of your ball striking abilities, and to that end Matthew NeSmith is given a strong chance this week.
He ranks 40th on TOUR this season for SG: Tee-to-Green despite the fact that he’s a below-par chipper, and while his short game is average at best period, it’s noteworthy that he’s gained strokes on the field with his flat stick in three of his last four starts on American soil.
Although he has missed two cuts at this venue, NeSmith has played well at the Country Club of Jackson in the past, and so that correlating form is enough for us to give him a go this week.
Key Stats:
- SG: Approach – 31st
- Greens in Regulation – 33rd
- Total Driving – 49th
Low-Tier Pick:
Henrik Norlander (Odds: 225/1, FPPG: 45.8, GPFP: 36.66 Salary: $6,700)
We’re really going to challenge the accuracy of our correlating course profile here.
Henrik Norlander embarked on five consecutive missed cuts prior to snapping that streak at the Barracuda Championship, but it’s his form at CC Jackson and Detroit GC that is really of interest – in the past three years, he has served up a trio of top-20 finishes across the two tracks.
At 225/1 in a field this weak, you kinda know the risk you’re taking with players like Norlander, but the upside is that we have a player here who ranks 54th on TOUR for Greens in Regulation – not the most instructive stat, admittedly, but it shows that the Swede does possess plenty of talent nonetheless.
Key Stats:
- Approaches from 175-200 yards – 27th
- Greens in Regulation – 54th
- SG: Approach – 90th
Sleeper Pick for the 3M Open
Tyler Duncan (Odds: 100/1, FPPG: 55.4, GPFP: 44.29 Salary: $7,100)
With a player that shapes up as a solid ball-striker, it doesn’t take a genius to work out which stat you should be watching week by week.
With Tyler Duncan, he’s got green numbers with his flat stick in three of his last five starts, including a heady +0.89 on the field at the Barbasol Championship.
Those came on Bentgrass greens, and maybe we’re clutching at straws here but this is a guy who ranks 45th on TOUR for SG: Tee-to-Green – not a million miles away from being elite.
Key Stats:
- Birdie Average – 41st
- SG: Off-the-Tee – 49th
- SG: Approach – 55th
Alternative Sleeper Pick for the 3M Open
Nate Lashley (Odds: 120/1, FPPG: 56.6, GPFP: 45.29 Salary: $7,000)
When looking amongst the bargain bin this week, you’re going to do very well to find viable options in a field this mediocre.
But Nate Lashley flags up nicely as a player with form at both CC of Jackson and Detroit GC, who also ranks highly for one of our approach distance buckets at TPC Twin Cities.
Lashley has missed three of his last four cuts, but none by disastrous margins and he posted four rounds in the 60s at the Travelers Championship on his way to a T25 turn.
Key Stats:
- Birdie Average – 23rd
- Greens in Regulation – 47th
- SG: Putting – 48th
This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup
Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only. Be sure to mix-and-match players to best fit individual contests.
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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2021-2022)
Tourneys Played '21 -'22
Season Earnings YTD
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