Looking for some part-time work in the Minneapolis area? Then, boy, do we have a nice gig for you. Well, one PGA Tour pro does, rather. It involves long hours and carrying a heavy bag, but there’s a big potential payoff.

Of course, we’re talking about caddieing. And one tour pro, Erik van Rooyen, is in need of one after his normal looper, Alex Gaugert, Monday qualified for this week’s 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities.

The 33-year-old South African is undoubtedly happy for his former teammate at the University of Minnesota, but he really does need some help now. So he put out a want ad on Twitter.

So my caddie @lil_gaugs just qualified for the @3MOpen! What a STUD!!! Soooooooo anyone want to loop this week?! @PGATOUR

— Erik van Rooyen (@FredVR_) July 25, 2023

It’s the latest reminder that not only are these guys good, but a lot of these guys’ caddies are also very good. In addition to being a former Gopher, Gaugert also won the 2014 Wisconsin State Amateur.

And to those applying to be on Van Rooyen’s bag, hey, you never know. We’ve seen plenty of fill-in caddies wind up on the winning side, including Akshay Bhatia’s girlfriend, Steve Stricker’s daughter, and, yes, that local caddie Matt Kuchar won with at the 2018 Mayakoba Classic.

So good luck to Alex, who is making his PGA Tour debut and playing against his boss this week. And good luck to those applying to be his replacement. We’re pretty sure Van Rooyen will pay a lot better than Kuchar should he wind up hoisting the trophy on Sunday.

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By Christopher Powers
The 3M Open is very much not a major championship. However, you may mistake it for one when you see who might finish second this week at TPC Twin Cities.

OK, that may have been a bit harsh, but Louis Oosthuizen really is making a habit of coming up just a shot or two short this last handful of years. Normally, he only does it in majors, but it appears as though he’ll do it again this week, once again in excruciating fashion. Beginning the day at eight under, four off the lead, the South African worked it to 12 under through 17 holes, likely needing an eagle at the 18th to post a number that might actually hold up. 

To Oosthuizen’s credit, he gave it his best effort, and on what has been one of the most difficult holes for the field all week. After missing the fairway and finding the left rough, he laid up to 95 yards, then hit a perfect wedge shot that did everything but go in the hole. In fact, it pretty much was in the hole before popping out. Are there still noodles in these cups?

To tie the lead on 18 … ?@Louis57TM lips out from 95 yards. pic.twitter.com/25M0tJUiKD

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 25, 2021

Goodness gracious, do the golf gods hate this guy or what? That ball literally went in the hole before deciding it was too good for its home. What a brutal, brutal lip out for King Louie, who could really use just a hair of luck one of these weeks to finally pick off another victory.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that victory will come this week. Even if that had dropped, Oosthuizen would have only been tied for the lead at 14 under, which may have at least had a chance at forcing a playoff. Thirteen under could still get it done, too, but he’d need the guys ahead to struggle down the stretch for that to happen. All he can do now is watch and wait, though if he wants to avoid seeing that highlight over and over again, he might want to avoid a TV.

The post Somehow, some way, this perfect wedge shot from Louis Oosthuizen did not find the bottom of the cup appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
The 3M Open may not have had an epic duel between Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa, or some Jon Rahm fireworks on the back nine, but it did still provide an entertaining Sunday finish. The final few holes at TPC Twin Cities, just like they did during Matthew Wolff’s first career win a year ago, made for quite the tug of war down the stretch.

Here are our four takeaways from Day 4 of the 3M Open.

Nice guys do finish first
First things first, if you haven’t read our Alex Myers’ piece on how adoption gave Michael Thompson and his family life and love during the lockdown, you should do that soon (after reading this, of course). You’ll come out of it wondering why you weren’t pulling for this guy all day long, a reminder that nice guys do finish first, just not as much as we’d all like.

Thompson’s victory on Sunday at TPC Twin Cities is the second of his PGA Tour career, the first coming at the 2013 Honda Classic, when he won in equally boring and effective fashion. That Sunday he grinded out a one-under 69 for a two-stroke victory at PGA National. On Sunday outside Minneapolis, he plodded his way around to a four-under 67, refusing to make a mistake and making every putt he needed to make to close it out. It wasn’t as flashy as a Rahm win or as bold and brash as a Bryson DeChambeau victory, but it didn’t need to be. There are still plenty of ways to get it done on tour.

Unfortunately for Thompson, his family wasn’t around to see win No. 2, which probably had a lot of folks reaching for the tissues on Sunday evening.

“It’s been a long time,” said a teary-eyed Thompson of his time between wins. “I’m just sad my wife and kids aren’t to celebrate this with me. I can’t wait to see them, I don’t know what to say.”

What it’s all about. ?

An emotional Michael Thompson discusses why winning the @3MOpen means so much. pic.twitter.com/8ulQJBQaiB

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 26, 2020

I’m not crying. You’re crying.

Stacy Revere

What a weekend from Adam Long
Great stat, as always, from Justin Ray here:

Players to win since 2010 after making the cut on the number:

2016 Brandt Snedeker – Farmers
2010 Carl Pettersson – Canadian
2010 Rory McIlroy – Quail Hollow

Adam Long made the cut on the number Friday.

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) July 26, 2020

If not for Thompson’s red-hot putter, Long more than likely would have become the fourth player to accomplish this ridiculous feat in the last decade. His seven-under 64 saw him climb 11 spots up the leader board, and he eventually settled for solo second. He now has two runner-ups since his breakthrough victory at the American Express in 2019, plus an eighth-place finish at the Waste Management in 2019. He may be a 31-year-old journeyman, but he’s proving to be far more than a random one-hit-wonder.

He’s also now going to get to play in the U.S. Open. Long’s solo second-place finished was good enough to earn him an automatic exemption to play at Winged Foot in September.

Matthew Stockman

The human ATM went full human ATM
Before we praise Charles Howell III for his 96th—96th !!!— career top-10 finish on the PGA Tour, we first have a bone to pick: How do you leave that eagle putt short on 18 that would have gotten you a share of the clubhouse lead? Chucky Three Sticks, of all people, could have afforded a three-putt had he juiced the eagle putt past the hole like he should have. That thing simply must get to or past the hole, especially when you are closing in on $40 million career on-course earnings. C’mon Chuck, live a little!

Turns out, it wouldn’t have been enough to win the tournament, anyway, so we’ll let it slide. Short eagle effort or not, 96 career top 10s is flat-out incredible. And yet, he’s still nowhere near Tiger Woods’ all-time record of … wait for it … 199. Yeah, that dude is pretty good.

Stacy Revere

Tony, Tony, Tony
Speaking of top-10 machines, that pretty much sums up Tony Finau’s existence right now. It sounds disrespectful, sure, but it’s also true. Big Tone now has 30 top-10 finishes without a victory since the beginning of the 2016-’17 season. That’s 14 clear of the next closest competitor, Tommy Fleetwood, who has 16. What’s most frustrating about Finau is that these are no ordinary top 10s, as he’s often in serious contention. His T-3 on Sunday marks his 15th top-five finish since the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open. That is a LOT of opportunities to not cash in a win on.

For Finau fans, bettors or anyone interesting in rooting for a genuine good guy, Sunday had to be the most unacceptable miss so far. Outside of Matthew Wolff or a hobbled Brooks Koepka, Finau was easily the most-talented player to tee it up at TPC Twin Cities this week. At 16 under through 64 holes, this was Finau’s tournament for the taking, and he played the final eight holes in even par. With his length, Finau should be playing those final three holes in two under at minimum. If he couldn’t get it done this week, when can we ever expect him too?

This all may sound harsh, but for the Finau faithful, it’s all out of love. Happy to be proven wrong, sooner rather than later. I fully expect this paragraph to end up on the Freezing Cold Takes Twitter account when he wins the PGA at Harding Park.

The post Nice guys do finish first and three other takeaways from Day 4 of the 3M Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
Matthew Wolff and Collin Morikawa grew up 40 minutes apart in Southern California, Wolff in Simi Valley and Morikawa in Los Angeles. When earthquakes struck just north of L.A. on Friday and Saturday, they made hurried calls home to make sure family was all right.

On Saturday, the two rookie professionals shook up the 3M Open. The kids weren’t just all right at TPC Twin Cities. They were superb. And they are tied for the lead with 18 holes remaining and will be in Sunday’s final pairing at 1 p.m. CDT.

Wolff, who as a sophomore at Oklahoma State recently won the Jack Nicklaus Award as Division I Player of the Year, after capturing the NCAA individual title, flirted with a 59 briefly on Saturday before settling for a nine-under 62, tied for low round of the tournament. About 90 minutes later, Morikawa, an All-American for Cal, posted 64. They are tied with Bryson DeChambeau, the No. 8 player in the world, at 15-under 198.

Not bad for their fourth pro starts.

Just one week after another fresh rookie, Viktor Hovland, shot a final-round eight-under 64 to finish T-13 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, Morikawa and Wolff have a fantastic opportunity before them. If one of them wins, he immediately becomes exempt on the PGA Tour. But each also could earn special temporary membership without winning. Morikawa, who was T-14 in his pro debut at the RBC Canadian Open, can do it with a four-way tie for second or solo third. Wolff needs second place outright.

It won’t be easy. Just three shots separate the top 14 on the leader board in this inaugural event.

“It’s pretty amazing that we are giving ourselves some chances early,” said Wolff, 20, who on Saturday played alongside 60-year-old Tom Lehman, the man charged with renovating and toughening TPC Twin Cities for this event. “I saw some of the success of the other guys, and it kind of fired me up to want to get up there, too.”

He got up there by going low thanks to six straight birdies in the middle of the round. His only hiccup was a bogey at the par-3 17th after he misjudged the wind. That came on the heels of missing a four-footer for birdie that could have taken him to 10 under. Still, the 62 was his lowest competitive round ever, and it was the second-lowest score in relation to par on the PGA Tour by a player younger than 21 years old since 1983. Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy hold the record at 10 under.

“It became the Matthew Wolff show,” said Lehman, who was awed by Wolff’s power, his precision with his irons and his unique swing. “I kind of got sucked into watching him play, and boy, what a round he played. He hit so many amazing iron shots. He nearly jarred it three or four times.

“The way he swings it, there’s almost no face rotation through the ball. His swing is in some ways a gift to him because he’s a straight-ball hitter.”

During his birdie string, Wolff had putts of four feet at the fifth and then four, six, four and eight feet, respectively on holes seven through 10. He two-putted for birdie at the par-5 sixth.

“I would say when I birdied 10 to get to seven under, I was kind of thinking of 59, but I knew I had to stay in the moment,” Wolff said. “So, 62 obviously, on a PGA Tour course, is a heck of a score whoever shoots it, but I’m glad I got it going.”

Off to a slow start, Wolff said he has been playing “too strategically” and decided to free up his thinking and be aggressive. “I just needed to be me,” he said. “At the end of the day, I belong out here, and I don’t need to change anything in my game to play with the guys out here. I think that’s what I struggled with the first couple weeks, I was always trying to look for that little extra something instead of being myself.”

Sam Greenwood

Perhaps not surprisingly, Morikawa, 22, has a similar mindset.

“Yeah, I mean, it is golf out here. It’s on a lot bigger stage, but our games played very well throughout the spring. We’re going to have to control our nerves, remember who we are, what brought us out here,” he said.

“For me, it’s just building a routine, building my routine that’s going to work every single day,” he added. “You kind of tweak one thing or another, but for the most part you come out here, stick to what you’ve been doing in college and junior golf and that’s what you’ve been working for. Not to come out here and change everything, but to do what you’re doing.”

Wolff, Morikawa, Hovland and Justin Suh, an All-American at USC, all turned professional following the NCAA Championship. Suh made his first cut as a pro this week and also made Saturday’s secondary cut despite a triple bogey on the par-5 home hole.

Hovland was hardly surprised by what his Oklahoma State teammate, Wolff, was doing or that Morikawa was right there next to him on the leader board. Morikawa has some experience already contending in a pro event; as a 19-year-old, he shot a pair of weekend 63s in the 2016 Air Capital Classic on what was then the Web.com Tour (now Korn Ferry) before losing to Ollie Schneiderjans in a three-man playoff.

“We’re all just taking it day by day, but at least we’re all showing something, that we are pretty good,” said Hovland, who won the 2018 U.S. Amateur and also was named an All-American this year. “It’s fun to see all of us out here together. Obviously, Matt had a heck of a season and Collin is really good. You shoot good scores, whatever the level of competition, and that takes care of itself.”

Wolff has suffered just two bogeys in his last 36 holes, while Morikawa has had three. They have combined for 30 birdies in that stretch. Wolff has converted 21 birdies overall, tied with Adam Hadwin for best in the field. Good golf, indeed.

The two youngsters have competed against each other in junior golf, in high school, in college and in national amateur events. Now they square off on the PGA Tour. Two sponsor’s exemptions in the final pairing. When has that ever happened before? No one could remember.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Morikawa said. “Who knows where this is going to take us, but we’re just trying to make the most out of it this summer. I mean, this is awesome to be out here, this is what we’ve always wanted, and to be in this position, it’s going to be exciting tomorrow.”

Yes, it will. Just shaking things up.

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Unlike Wolff and Morikawa, DeChambeau struggled to make birdies on Saturday at TPC Twin Cities, and after 17 holes were at even par with one birdie and one bogey. After a hooked drive at the 18th, it looked as though he’d be heading into the final round trailing the two young studs, but he went for the bold play, hitting a hybrid out of thick rough over the water guarding the 18th green. He got up and down for birdie for a one-under 70 from a greenside bunker to tie for the lead, though he’ll be in the second-to-last group off in the final round.

The final group will be Morikawa and Wolff, who are a combined 42 years old. Wolff, the younger one at just 20 years and two months, is the youngest 54 hole leader or co-leader on the PGA Tour since 1983. The former Oklahoma State standout flirted with 59 on Saturday, eventually settling for a nine-under 62 to match DeChambeau and Scott Piercy for the low score of the tournament.

And then there is Morikawa, who had just as decorated if not a more decorated an amateur career than Wolff without nearly the fanfare. Much of that is due to Wolff’s unusual swing, which has captured the attention of the golf world. But Morikawa, who played at California, should not be overlooked, as he proved on Saturday with a third-round 64.

“I’ve always had this dream of finishing school, four years, going to graduation and coming out here [on the PGA Tour] and doing what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid,” said Morikawa. “Finally being able to come out here, having these starts throughout the summer, it’s been awesome. Obviously, there’s a learning curve and you learn every single day so much, but I’ve put three solid rounds together so far and I look forward to tomorrow.”

Wyndham Clark and Adam Hadwin are tied for second at 14 under, while Hideki Matsuyama, Charles Howell III and Troy Merritt are tied for sixth at 13 under. Another young rising star, Joaquin Niemann, as among a group at 12 under.

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By Dave Shedloski
The shakeup of the 2019 PGA Tour schedule has created challenges for tournaments and players alike. It also has created openings. These next two weeks feature new events in markets that have been home to major championships and senior golf but now are stepping up to the major leagues.

This week, Detroit gets its first taste of a regular tour event with the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club. The $7.3 million events is sponsored by Quicken Loans, which for the last few years as title sponsor of the tournament Tiger Woods-hosted outside Washington, D.C. Immediately behind it is another newbie, the $6.4 million 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities in suburban Minneapolis, not to be confused with the 3M Championship, a PGA Tour Champions event held at the same site the last 18 years.

Though Minneapolis hosted the Ryder Cup in 2016 at Hazeltine National, site of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship that ended Sunday, it last saw a PGA Tour event in 2009 when Y.E. Yang upset Woods in the PGA Championship at Hazeltine. Detroit’s last taste of tour golf was the 2008 PGA Championship and the 2004 Ryder Cup, both at Oakland Hills. The area also held the Buick Classic up the road in Grand Blanc until 2009. Meanwhile, the Senior Players Championship was held in nearby Dearborn from 1990-2006.

Both events have drawn decent fields despite the unknowns that go with inaugural outings. The Rocket Mortgage Classic has Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler (a Rocket Mortgage spokesman), Bubba Watson, Ernie Els, and newly minted U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland. Commitments to the 3M Open include Brooks Koepka, Jason Day, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed.

Not a bad start for either when you’re selling promises and ideas to the game’s top players, many of whom are creatures of habit to an almost obsessive degree and tend to enter the same tournaments year in and year out. They have their favourite courses and locales, and, of course, purse size matters, too.

“Tour players have 46 places they can call their home each year and they choose 20 or 25 of them to make their home,” said Jason Langwell, executive director of the Rocket Mortgage Classic. “They want to know why they should go to a new place to call home for one of those weeks. It’s a challenge.”

A Donald Ross course helped tour pros be more comfortable committing to play at Detroit Golf Club. (Courtesy of Detroit Golf Club)

In Langwell’s case, he has the recently upgraded North Course of Detroit Golf Club, originally designed by Donald Ross and located close to downtown. “None of them has played here, but they all have played a Donald Ross course, so they know what to expect,” he said. “We also offer a downtown experience—a revitalized downtown experience that is unique compared to most tour stops that are mostly in suburbia.”

It didn’t hurt having Fowler talk up the tournament, though the five-time tour winner insists his role was minimal. “I actually haven’t done much, really,” Fowler said. “It’s mostly been just answering any questions and encouraging guys to come, but I wouldn’t say I recruited anyone.”

The wheels were set in motion for a tour event in Detroit when Quicken Loans became the title sponsor of the Quicken Loans National. While enjoying his involvement in the D.C. tournament, Quicken Loans founder and chairman Dan Gilbert was determined to bring the tour to the city where his company is headquartered. Similarly, 3M is based in Minneapolis. Yep, follow the money.

But that’s where the similarities end.

“We’ve had 13 months to put this together when the tour said you need 18-20 months,” Langwell said. “Unlike 3M, we had no ticketing infrastructure, we had no program in place to segue into. The scale is different for them obviously, but they had a base to build from [after being a long-time PGA Tour Champions venue]. We did not. We had to build awareness and consensus, build our brand from scratch. We needed to find that 25th and 26th hour in the day to make it happen.”

For Peter Mele, tournament director of the 3M Open, the challenge has been about making everything bigger, including the golf course. The TPC Twin Cities, originally designed by the late Arnold Palmer, has been given a serious upgrade at the hands of Minnesota native Tom Lehman, who oversaw what was called “a competitive enhancement project” in which the par-72 layout was stretched from 7,164 yards to more than 7,500 yards with par reset at 71.

Mele, the former tournament director of the Northern Trust, the FedEx Cup playoff event in New York area, never previously had to recruit a field. So that was a new twist in his job description. That fits in with the theme of the 3M Open. This is a new ballgame here.

“One of our big challenges is communicating that this is not the 3M Championship, this is the 3M Open, this is the PGA Tour,” Mele said. “We want it to have a different look and feel when fans step on site. We want to have a great show and give them a lot of things to get engaged in.”

TPC Twin Cities has experience with big tournaments, having hosted a PGA Tour Champions stop the past 18 years. (Icon Sportswire)

And because the first round of the tournament lands on July 4, Mele hopes to provide a special experience for players, a real celebration that goes with the national holiday, including a concert on Friday night featuring the Zach Brown Band.

One intangible 3M Open has in its favour is Hollis Cavner and his Pro Links Sports, which operates the event as well as others, including the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte. “Hollis has a reputation for running a quality event with quality amenities for players and caddies and their families when they come to his events,” Mele pointed out.

Another is the community, which appears ready to welcome the game’s top talent. “There is tremendous excitement here,” Mele said. “We realized that early on when we opened our volunteer registration. To our amazement, we hit our numbers in mid-April. Usually, you need 800-900, but we needed 1,800 for new event. That was an indication of the enthusiasm this event was generating. We were all thinking there’d be a lot of excitement. But you never know until you have the tournament.”

Likewise, Langwell said ticket and corporate hospitality sales for the Rocket Mortgage Classic are exceeding expectations. The curtain goes up on Monday with practice rounds. Apparently, he found enough 25th hours in the day to have everything in place.

“We feel ready. A few finishing touches and edges to smooth, but we feel pretty good given the preparation time,” he said. “The euphemism we use around here is ‘blessed stress.’ It’s stressful to put anything together for the first time but we’re blessed to have it.”

The post Attracting players, creating buzz among the challenges facing the PGA Tour’s newest tournaments appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Tournaments that end on Sunday generally aren’t won on Saturday, as Kenny Perry demonstrated in the final round of the 3M Championship. Most of the five-stroke lead he began the day vanished early, requiring he work hard to close out his 10th PGA Tour Champions victory.

Nothing has been particularly easy for Perry this year, save, perhaps, for the 12-under par 60 he shot at the TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minn., on Saturday. He sweated out a three-under par 69 in the final round to win by three over Wes Short Jr., his third victory in the event.

“I hate being the guy being hunted,” he said. “I felt very tight the first nine holes. I was uneasy, just didn’t feel good out there. I kept thinking, ‘you blow a five-shot lead, they’ll be talking about you.’

“But I felt good coming in. I’ve only played eight events or so. My year’s been in disarray. I’m so sporadic. I can’t practice enough because I hurt with all this. I don’t have enough reps in me. I just physically cannot practice the way I used to where I can continue to hit the golf shots I’m trying to hit.”

Perry, 57, did not start his season until mid-April, the result of off-season shoulder surgery that contributed to a loss of confidence. This, in fact, was his 10th start of the season, and before Sunday’s victory, his best finish had been a tie for fifth.

“I’m just ecstatic to get back in the winner’s circle,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d ever get back in it, to tell you the truth. Confidence is so fleeting in the game of golf. It can come and then it can leave fast. I just didn’t have any. To shoot 60 yesterday was a breath of fresh air.”

The five-shot lead over Glen Day with which he began the round dwindled to won after the seventh hole, where Perry had made a second straight bogey. But he did not make another bogey and birdied four of his last 10 holes.

“I had a lot of pressure on me today,” he said. “I free-wheeled it yesterday. I was lucy-goosey, just cutting it loose and having the time of my life. And today I couldn’t hardly breathe, couldn’t hardly draw it back. I don’t know how I shot 69, I really don’t.”

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The tour and 3M announced a seven-year agreement for a tournament to be held in Minnesota, beginning in 2019. The 3M Open will be hosted at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, and though dates were not announced, it is expected to be conducted in the summer.

“We are delighted to partner with 3M for this new PGA Tour event in the Twin Cities, a community that has shown tremendous support for professional golf over the years with PGA TOUR Champions, the PGA Championship, Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup, and has deservedly played host to the biggest events in sports – Super Bowls, Final Fours, among them,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. “The 3M Open will also continue 3M’s commitment to charity and positively impacting lives.”

The area has held its share of major golf events, with Hazeltine hosting U.S. Opens (both men, women, and senior), PGA Championships, U.S. Amateurs and the Ryder Cup. However, this will be the PGA Tour’s first foray into the area since 1969.

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