Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2025 3M Open

3M Open Fantasy Sleeper Report

Has there ever been a more apologetic, nonplussed elite sportsman than Scottie Scheffler?

He portrays the image of a man that wouldn’t be all that fussed if his career ended tomorrow, and yet Scheffler is shaping up to go down as one of the greatest players in history.

Taking down the British Open in Links conditions that he hasn’t always showed a fondness for is one thing. But being just a U.S. Open shy of completing the career grand slam at the age of 29 something else entirely.

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Nobody could lay a glove on Scheffler at Royal Portrush, with the result seemingly a formality as soon as he asserted his dominance on the leaderboard on Saturday; he’d won each of his last events when leading after 54 holes.

Make that ten. 

Scottie punched the air after landing the winning putt and looked thrilled to lift the Claret Jug, but his biggest smile of the week came as he watched his one-year-old son wobble and fall as he attempted to raid the eighteenth green on Sunday.

This is a guy grounded in family life, who plays with a perspective that his golf career is more than sating his ego – it’s about creating a legacy that his child, or potentially children, and their children will remember for decades to come.

And that makes Scottie a very dangerous animal indeed.

So the field for the 3M Open this week can breathe a sigh of relief that he won’t be heading to Blaine, Minnesota. In fact, those assembling at TPC Twin Cities could be forgiven for looking around and thinking, ‘Where is everybody?’

Just one lonely member of the OWGR top-30, Maverick McNealy, will be braving the trip back across the pond, and just eight of the OWGR top-40 in all will be playing: Sam Burns, Wyndham Clark, Scottish Open winner Chris Gotterup, Sungjae Im, Max Greyserman, Taylor Pendrith, and Max Greyserman said protagonists.

The 3M Open is typically a wide-open event: evidenced by Jhonattan Vegas’ win as a 75/1 chance here 12 months ago… a year after Lee Hodges had obliged as an 80/1 hopefully. Long odds bettors, this could be our chance to shine.

The simplicity of TPC Twin Cities also adds to the possibility of a longshot champion this week. Only the most errant off the tee will fail to find the luxuriously wide fairways, while the larger-than-average Bentgrass greens are a doddle to find – GIR counts of 75% and higher were commonplace 12 months ago.

Boasting three of the easiest Par 5s on the PGA TOUR, TPC Twin Cities bears all the hallmarks of a birdie fest with a few surprise figures battling it out for supremacy at the top of the leaderboard.

The soggy weather forecast, with the possibility of rain from Monday and throughout the week, does little to detract from such a probability. 

So can we get on the right side of variance and land a big odds winner this week? Here’s five players to follow in our 2025 3M Open sleeper shortlist:

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Cameron Champ – 60/1 – A scoring average of 69.12 at TPC Twin Cities sets the tone very nicely for Cameron Champ.

Of course, much of that was accomplished in his win here back in 2021, but other finishes of T12 and T16 here reveal that Champ is able to make the most of his idiosyncratic style in Blaine.

He continues to do what he does well, i.e. hit the ball long and straight and make some putts, which has led him to three top-20s and a T27 within his last four strokeplay starts on the PGA TOUR.

Lee Hodges – 60/1 – Lee Hodges’ approach play numbers are catching the eye ahead of a return to a venue he knows well.

He gained +0.89 per round on average at the Scottish Open, albeit missing the cut, but prior to that Hodges had gained a mammoth +1.92 with irons and wedges in hand at the John Deere Classic.

Typically very accurate off the tee, Hodges will need his putter to catch up this week, but he is capable of those big breakout weeks on the greens – another of those this week and maybe he can emulate his course record at TPC Twin Cities fired in 2023.

Rico Hoey – 60/1 – Tests of long, straight hitting are very much in the comfort zone of Rico Hoey, who continues to excel in that particular department.

So good is his ball striking that he’s almost able to get away with the fact that he can’t putt for toffee. But something of an improvement on the greens of late has led to T8 and T11 finishes at the Barracuda Championship and John Deere Classic. 

Hoey has finished T25 or better six times on the PGA TOUR so far in 2025; if somebody could putt for him, many of those would have been top-fives or better. But some of his better work on the greens has come on Bentgrass… could that facilitate further improvement this week?

Kevin Roy – 80/1 – Given how well he played in the early part of summer, Kevin Roy will perhaps see a return of MC-35 in the alternate ISCO Championship and Barracuda Championship as an opportunity missed.

Ryan Gerard, a player with a very similar profile, won the latter, so maybe Roy needs the rarefied air of full status PGA TOUR events to really get the juices flowing.

T3 at the John Deere Classic, T8 at the Rocket Classic, and T18 at the Canadian Open is evidence of a player on a heater in recent weeks – Roy’s accurate ball-striking should also find a happy home at TPC Twin Cities.

Doug Ghim – 90/1 – Of those players that have contested four or more editions of the 3M Open, only Tony Finau, Emiliano Grillo, and Cam Davis have a better scoring average than Doug Ghim at TPC Twin Cities.

He loves this place, but has flown somewhat under the radar with finishes of 24-27-16-MC-18, hence his lofty price this week.

The missing ingredient for Ghim is, and always has been, the putter, but his string of form in Blaine suggests a penchant for these particular greens.

Ghim’s accurate ball striking is so good that he could become a multiple time PGA TOUR winner, but he needs his flatstick to improve to have any chance of that.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the 3M Open here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2024-2025)

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