Large-Field GPP Breakdown: 3M Open

Wow, I must say I am really glad that we are back in the U.S. and not playing links golf tournaments. It was an absolutely horrible week for me last week, and unfortunately it was the week where I had the most Mega Milly tickets I’ve ever had to date. Yes, all of them were wasted. Despite being done with majors season, I can’t say that I am sad to see guys like Joaquin Niemann exit my projected player pools. It’s very hard to believe that the world’s No. 1 player on any tour has such a hard time making the cut in majors, but here we are. Golf does not stop because major season is over — in fact, the PGA Tour is gearing up for the playoffs that happen every year. We have a couple more birdie-fest tournaments to go before we get to the FedEx Cup Playoffs, so we may see some big names try and qualify for the playoffs by entering some of these events. We saw this happen with Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth over the last couple of years. But for now, we’ll focus on the 3M Open, as I know there are ETR subs who are in the final round of the FGWC vying for a million dollars this week.

The Open – Recap

As I said, this really was not a great week for me overall. Classic was especially cruel, as I basically had zero Matt Fitzpatrick and many of the other leaders. Bryson DeChambeau, who was one of my most-owned players, had to shoot -6 or better on multiple days just to be sniffing the top 10. Despite a couple of heroic rounds from my overweight players, it simply was not enough to even come close to any big scores. Let’s take a look at the large-field Milly Maker-winning lineup to see if we can learn anything from the results:

• It’s important to note that the winning lineup was duped, which really is a bummer because it feels like chalk has hit in a big way over the last few weeks. The lineup started with Scottie Scheffler and jumped down to the $7K and $6K ranges, and it ended up being a 14/7/7/6/6/6 lineup, which was one of the more popular builds if you started with Scottie. Not to mention, this lineup paired Scottie with Fitzpatrick AND Harry Hall, two guys I almost never would have paired with Scottie knowing the likelihood of the combinations.
• The lineup had a whopping ownership of ~90%, which probably explains why the lineup was duped. There were 100K+ entries in the tournament, but it remains quite easy to stay unique with many of your lineups. Again, it’s quite a bummer that such a chalky, thoughtless lineup won the large-field Milly Maker, but sometimes the fish have to eat to keep the ecosystem humming.

Despite the poor week, I am not upset at all with how I played. Sometimes, the combinations that I’ve purposely taken down or docked pop off, and that basically means I am dead on arrival. It’s an uncomfortable way to play, as I am very susceptible to disastrous weeks, but the hope overall is that I have more celebratory weeks than those, especially when we get paid off big time if we win a large-field GPP.

3M Open – Preview

It’s a very jarring change we experience on the PGA Tour, where we go straight from a major to an event that is quite underwhelming in talent and allure. The good thing is that DraftKings doesn’t care about that; they just care about taking our money, so they’ve offered up a pretty good set of contests for the week. The 3M, held at TPC Twin Cities, is a longstanding PGA Tour event that attracts a ton of players looking to fortify their standing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. TPC Twin Cities is not known to be a very difficult course, as we’ll see from the past scores and winners. That being said, there are a LOT of water hazards on the course, so players who aren’t locked in can get absolutely nuked on a single hole and virtually end their tournament. I distinctly remember a tanking Hideki Matsuyama stubbornly going for the green three times in a row, dunking it into the water the first two times. Here are the past five winners of the 3M: