BLAINE, Minn. — The 3M Open, in its first three summers as a PGA Tour event, produced two of the longest-driving winners you'll find.
Unorthodox swinging Matthew Wolff's eagle putt from the fringe beat big driver Bryson DeChambeau and fellow tour rookie Collin Morikawa on the final hole in 2019.
Last year, current PGA Tour driving-distance leader Cameron Champ's tap-in par putt beat major champions Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel for Champ's third tour victory.
Yet it's too small a sample size and the conditions too variable to declare TPC Twin Cities a bomber's course, isn't it?
"I don't think it's a bomber's course at all," 2020 3M Open champion Michael Thompson said.
He should know.
Thompson is a hitter of modest length. He's also the anomaly who plotted his way around the former sod farm to victory in Blaine two years ago.
He made birdies on two of his final three holes to win on the PGA Tour for the second time — and for the first time in seven years.
Three of the world's top 25 ranked golfers — No. 14 Hideki Matsuyama, No. 17 Tony Finau and No. 24 Sungjae Im — are in the 3M Open field that begins play early Thursday morning. So, too, are fan favorites like Rickie Fowler, who played in the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in 2016 and is a five-time Tour winner.
Four of the biggest hitters and another one from the Korn Ferry Tour given a sponsor's exemption are top 10 in driving distance: No. 1 Champ, No. 5 Wyndham Clark, No. 7 Brandon Hagy and No. 8 Joseph Bramlett.
Brandon Matthews, playing on a sponsor's exemption, might outdistance them all. He already has earned his PGA Tour card for next season. This is his fourth PGA Tour event, and he made the cut at the U.S. Open in June.
Matthews is 27, raised and educated in Pennsylvania and has won on the Latinoamerica and Korn Ferry tours. He credits youth baseball for developing fast hands and his father, Ted, for developing his prodigious length.
Ted had his young son hit 60 yards across a water hazard until he reached the other side at their country club. When his shots reached the other side, Ted moved Brandon back and started again. And so on …
He hits it so long, some weeks he leaves his driver out of his bag because there's no place safe for his drives to go.
That won't be the case at the par 71, 7,431-yard TPC Twin Cities course this week.
"I'll be able to hit it a few times out there," Matthews said. "A lot of these holes where I am going to hit driver, it sets up really nice for my eye. It's going to be nice to hit a few times this week, for sure."
He has left his driver out and gone with a strong 3-wood instead, but not recently. Instead, he has relied upon his long irons and normal 3-wood.
"It's an advantage when I can hit 3-iron, 2-iron, 3-wood up to where some guys are hitting their drivers," Matthews said. "Using my length to an advantage is how I look at it."
Champ always carries his driver, but in Blaine will hit 2-iron off the par 4s and maybe even some par 5s. He'll likely do so on as many as 10 of 11 par fours.
"It's really not that many drivers," Champ said. "It definitely takes a lot of stress off. Even though it's not an easy club to hit, it takes a little sense of pressure off knowing I can just hit my punch 2-iron and get it in the fairway and give myself a chance. The majority of my wins so far have been set up that way."
Champ is on his way back from injury and personal matters since he last arrived in Blaine. He earned an invitation back to Augusta National with a clutch tie for 10th at the Masters, followed with a tie for sixth at the Mexico Open and a tie for 38th at the Byron Nelson.
But he's missed his last five cuts, starting with May's PGA Championship.
"This is the best mind frame I've been in quite a long time," he said. "There's definitely a comfort factor. I like it here, from the grass to the course layout to where the pins are. This is just one of those places where it doesn't matter if I play good or bad. I'm just very comfortable with it."
Thompson calls the rough deeper than it has been, the wind stronger if it again blows 25 mph as it did for Wednesday's final practice round. He calls it a course where the winner will have made putts.
"It's a second-shot golf course," Thompson said. "Accuracy is going to be really important. It should be interesting if the wind keeps up. It's short enough that I think anybody can win. That's evident because I won and I'm not one of the long hitters on tour."
