Remaining PGA Tour events won’t have fans

Forget monsters (Oakland Hills), snakes (Copperhead Course at Innisbrook) and bears (PGA National). If you had to anthropomorphize the old TPC Twin Cities, which has been totally redone for this week’s inaugural 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota, you might settle on a Teletubby, or one of those Saint Bernard puppies with the tiny cask affixed to its collar.  The course was downright cuddly when it hosted a PGA TOUR Champions event, the 3M Championship, from 2001-18. Paul Goydos and Kenny Perry each shot 60; David Frost’s 25-under 191 in 2010 tied the all-time 54-hole record on that circuit; and in 2017 alone the tournament saw the fifth and eighth most under-par scores in a single round in Champions history. In the last 10 seasons, it ranked among the three easiest Champions courses eight times. RELATED: Hole-by-hole tour of TPC Twin Cities “The beauty of it is it was playable for the average guy,� says Tom Lehman, who is savoring the prospect of a regular TOUR event in his home state for the first time since 1969. “The greens weren’t super sloped, so you’d have a reasonable putt for par if you got it near the hole. It’s very enjoyable, and therefore the PGA TOUR Champions guys shot the grass off it.� But that was then. Late last summer, Lehman and the PGA TOUR design staff began renovating TPC Twin Cities to give it teeth for the likes of Brooks Koepka, Jason Day, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson. New tee boxes and bunkering will make it longer, and tighter fairways will make it more challenging. Short par 5s are now long par 4s. Then there’s the ever-expanding lake on 18. “I’m as curious as anybody to see how it plays differently,� says Lehman, who along with fellow Minnesotan Tim Herron will make a rare PGA TOUR start this week. Once a 7,000-yard par 72, the course is now a 7,450-yard par 71. (The old par-5 third hole has become a 500-plus-yard par 4.) The par-5 sixth measures over 600 yards. The par-3 17th features a 229-yard forced carry over water. At the 596-yard, par-5 18th, the tee was moved right, and the size of the lake roughly doubled, adding intrigue to what can be a beguiling hole. “I made a 10 there last year in the second round,� says Goydos, who also eagled the old version of 18, typical of the finisher’s feast-or-famine nature. “It was an exciting risk-reward hole.�    And now it’s even more so. Simply put, this is not the same TPC Twin Cities. “Extensive,� 3M Tournament Director Peter Mele says of the renovations. Originally a 2000 Arnold Palmer design with input from Lehman, the first iteration of TPC Twin Cities was above all meant to be fun and playable. It succeeded. Now, as the host venue in a seven-year deal between the PGA TOUR and 3M Open, Minnesota’s first PGA TOUR event since the 2009 PGA Championship won by Y.E. Yang, TPC Twin Cities 2.0 aims to retain that playability while adding bite from the back tees. “I love it,� says Hollis Cavner, CEO of Pro Links Sports, which manages the 3M Open. “I think Tom did a tremendous job with the redo. Lumpy (Tim Herron) and some of the guys have been out playing it, and he says it’s all the golf course you’d ever want.� Nine holes feature new tees, Lehman says, increasing their length anywhere from 20 to 80 yards. Take the second, which used to be reachable with no more than a 3-wood and a wedge. After the renovations, it’s no longer a pushover – around 480 yards from the new back tee. The big changes even have TPC Twin Cities aficionados anticipating a steep learning curve. “I’ll have a better feel on the greens, but (Lehman) totally redid a lot of the fairways and changed the angles off the tees,� says Kenny Perry, 58, who won the final 3M Championship on the PGA TOUR Champions and also will play in the first 3M Open, his ninth start this season on the regular TOUR. “I’m going to have to redo all my sight lines.� Then there are the renovations to the green complexes, which could make players think twice when, say, trying to drive the short, par-4s seventh, 10th and 16th holes. Lehman says the 10th, in particular, has become a more formidable test after the back-right part of the green was eliminated – the only major change to the greens on the entire course “It was the ultimate birdie hole,� he says. “That back-right side of the green was a safety valve for when you hit a bad tee shot, so we eliminated that. Now when you get out of position, you’re not going to be able to hold the green from a bad spot on the left side.� At the 16th, he changed the greenside bunkering and added chipping areas to let the ball roll a bit more, giving players more to think about when the tees are moved up to make it drivable. Then there’s 18. It’s still a risk-reward par 5, but with the tee pushed some 100 yards right, it’s a true dogleg right. And with the lake doubled in size, it’s easier than ever to make a huge number. “It used to be you would hit it straight down the fairway, which was 100 yards wide, and the only way you’d go in the water is by hitting it too far,� Lehman says. “So, we moved the tee so you have a diagonal tee shot over the corner of the pond, and it’s a dogleg, and it’s 70 yards longer than it was. I’ve been watching guys hit 3-wood, 3-wood to 630-yard par 5s, so it’s still going to be a driver and an iron, but you’ve got to hit a way better tee shot.� All of which adds up to – what, exactly? No one is going to confuse TPC Twin Cities for the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, or Bethpage Black, but it’s no Teletubby, either. Most people expect the week’s lowest score to be in the 20s under par, maybe even high 20s. “I think the winning score is gonna be low,� Lehman says. “You really can’t make a course long enough for any of those guys. Guys will have really good driving weeks, and they’ll have ample targets in the greens, and the greens will be perfect. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s more difficult than it was, it’s narrower. It’ll be a tougher course to score on, relative to how it was.�

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Welcome to the PGA TOUR’s version of the play-in game. In the void of the annual NCAA basketball tournaments in 2020, sports fans will latch onto the twist at the Wyndham Championship, for it is the last tournament before the FedExCup Playoffs. It determines who gets into the annual series. RELATED: Featured Groups | The First Look | Inside the Field Of course, so much more also is at stake at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina. Scroll past the projected contenders for a review of the Wyndham Rewards, secondary goals within reach, what’s different about the course and more. POWER RANKINGS: WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIP Defending champion J.T. Poston will be reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider along with fellow champions at Sedgefield, Sergio Garcia (2012) and Brandt Snedeker (2018). Jordan Spieth, Tommy Fleetwood and Sungjae Im also will be included among the notables. The season-long Wyndham Rewards will conclude this week. The top 10 in the final standings earn bonus (unofficial) prize money. All but the No. 1 position (held by Justin Thomas) are undetermined. As of midday Monday, eight of the 29 who are mathematically alive to finish inside the top 10 are scheduled to compete in the Wyndham Championship. Meanwhile, as detailed on April 30, all jobs are safe for the 2020-21 season because of the pandemic, but qualifying for the Playoffs can elevate status for dozens of golfers who currently don’t carry status strong enough to have advanced to last season’s Playoffs. As a result, the action around the top-125 bubble is much more volatile than it is around the top 10. From Graeme McDowell at 108th in points through Rob Oppenheim at 145th, every golfer is committed to the Wyndham Championship. Many more beneath Oppenheim also are in play. For those who finish 126-200 in the FedExCup, they will secure eligibility in the 2021 Korn Ferry Tour Finals. With what hopes to be a full season on deck, and with all cards retained, that perk may not seem to be critical now, but it likely will matter for a handful. Sedgefield presents as a speed track to the finish line. Since it began hosting the Wyndham Championship in 2008, it’s been the easiest or second-easiest par 70 every season but one (2013). Last year’s scoring average of 68.175 was its record low. While there is value in splitting fairways, there’s just not enough to penalize wayward shots, so it’s a bomb-and-gouge opportunity even though the leaderboards don’t reflect that profile in the aggregate. Because scoring is so low, the objective is to hit as many of the Champion bermudagrass greens as possible and trust in the putter. Now, what’s sort of hilarious about believing in oneself to prevail and convert on the many benefits that go with winning is that J.T. Poston not only played video-game golf, it was cheat code kind of stuff. En route to his breakthrough victory in 2019, he ranked T2 in fairways hit (45 of 56), co-led in greens in regulation (62 of 72) and paced the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. Most impressively, he got up and down all 10 times to complete the tournament in bogey-free, 22-under 258. (By comparison, Scott Stallings also was perfect in scrambling for the week – he went 14-for-14 – but he three-putted five times, each resulting in a bogey. He finished T31.) Sedgefield has a new overall yardage for the first time since 2012. It’s only a couple of paces longer at 7,131 yards, all four extra yards as a result of a new tee on the par-4 14th hole, which now tips at 505 yards. Greens are dialed to measure 12 feet on the Stimpmeter. The longest rough will top out at a customary two-and-a-half inches. It’s mid-August in the Triad, so it’d be a surprise only if rain wasn’t in the forecast. And, well, it is. Storms also could fire with daytime heating. Sticky conditions will be the constant. Wind will not be a factor. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. — Jim Herman shot his second straight 7-under 65 on Friday to take the second-round lead in the PGA TOUR’s Barbasol Championship. Herman had a one-stroke lead over Bill Haas at rain-softened Keene Trace. He won the 2016 Shell Houston Open for his lone TOUR title. Haas followed his opening 65 with a 66. He made a 45-foot eagle putt on the par-5 eighth, his 17th hole. David Toms was two strokes back at 12 under after a 64. The 52-year-old Toms made a 13-foot eagle putt on the par-5 fifth, his 14th hole of the day. D.J. Trahan, Kelly Kraft and Kramer Hickok also were 12 under, each shooting 67. Jose de Jesus Rodriguez (65), Austin Cook (66), Sebastian Munoz (68) and Wes Roach (69) were 11 under. Tom Lovelady played the first six holes on the back nine in 7 under, capped by a 10-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th. He bogeyed the par-3 16th and parred the last two for a 65 to top the group at 10 under. J.T. Poston, the first-round leader after a 62, had a 73 to drop into a tie for 18th at 9 under. Canadian Nick Taylor, a stroke behind Poston after an opening 63, also was 9 under after a 72. John Daly missed the cut with rounds of 71 and 72. Fighting osteoarthritis in his right knee, the 53-year-old Daly was playing his first PGA TOUR event since he was approved for a cart last fall. Denied a cart by the R&A for the Open Championship, he has been approved for a cart at PGA TOUR events until the end of the year. The winner will receive a spot in the PGA Championship.

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