Tiger Woods cards 2-under 69 in Round 1 at The Genesis Invitational

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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Here’s a quick look at what each player in the field at East Lake will need to do to claim the FedExCup. The trophy, and its $10 million prize, will be awarded at the conclusion of the TOUR Championship. * = A possible tie for the FedExCup that would result in a sudden death playoff

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A year ago, Bubba Watson was languishing at 115th in the FedExCup standings when he teed it up at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier at The Old White TPC in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Mired in a two-year win drought and fighting an undisclosed illness that saw him lose more than 20 pounds, he was at the lowest point in his career. Today, Bubba Golf is back. Watson is third in the FedExCup, the only three-time winner on the PGA TOUR this season, and one of the most dramatic turnaround stories of this season. “It’s been good,â€� Watson said in his press conference from the Greenbrier on Tuesday. “Looking back, I’m a golfer, so there’s always things I wish was better. It was a slow start to the year, missed a couple cuts. But I knew I was headed in the right direction.â€� Players are almost always trending in one direction or the other, up or down, with the exception of FedExCup No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who was also No. 1 a year ago at this time. With the start of the Playoffs seven weeks out, a snapshot of the current Top 30, who would get into the season-ending TOUR Championship if it started today, shows several dramatic upward trajectories. “If you make it to Atlanta, no matter how you play throughout the year, you’ve done something right,â€� said big mover Webb Simpson, who is 10th in the FedExCup (up from 33rd a year ago) after his big win at THE PLAYERS Championship, and is looking good for East Lake. Chesson Hadley, 19th in the FedExCup, has made the biggest leap; he was 224th a year ago. Ryan Armour, who is in the Greenbrier field and 30th in the FedExCup, has made the second biggest jump, from 185th. “I’m a different player over the last year,â€� Armour, 42, said recently, and as if to offer further proof, he finished second to runaway winner Francesco Molinari at the Quicken Loans National last week. Bryson DeChambeau, who will defend a TOUR title for the first time at next week’s John Deere Classic, is the third biggest mover over the last 12 months, having shot up from 128th position a year ago to 6th today. Whether you measure it with a calculator or a compass, that’s a huge improvement. Their transformations have been stark, as have those of TOUR winners Aaron Wise (FedExCup No. 23) and Austin Cook (No. 28), both of whom are playing the Greenbrier. They’re battling for Rookie of the Year honors, which begs the question: When you talk meteoric rises, do Cook and Wise get the nod over even Hadley? How do you measure the upward trajectory of a guy who wasn’t even on TOUR last year? Phil Mickelson, who is making his first start since a disappointing U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, has gone from 40th in the FedExCup a year ago to eighth today. Patton Kizzire, who also is playing the Greenbrier this week, has gone from 89th to ninth. No player, though, is enjoying as thrilling a run as Tony Finau. At No. 11 in the FedExCup, the soft-spoken, long-hitting Utahan is up 20 spots from a year ago. He has six top-10 finishes, including two at the season’s first two majors, and has proven just as adept at figuring out less brawny courses, like The Old White TPC (7,286 yards, par 70), as he is taming longer ones. “It’s been a great season for me,â€� said Finau, who is coming off a fifth-place U.S. Open finish in which he had a chance to win late Sunday. “Really solid season, and my best season thus far. I’ve played some really nice golf and I’ve learned a lot about myself both mentally and physically. I’ve been working really hard on my game, and I think it’s starting to show this year.â€� Finau is used to making big moves. After switching back to a conventional putting grip before the 2017 BMW Championship, he shot a final-round 64 at Conway Farms to tie for seventh and play his way into the TOUR Championship at East Lake, where he also finished T7 to finish 19th in the season-long race for the FedExCup. He’s kept that good run going in 2018. “I like the position I’m in,â€� Finau said. Being well inside the Top 30, he added, beats being on the outside looking in, as he was last year. But he’s loathe to take his eye off the ball at the Greenbrier and beyond. The same goes for Watson, Mickelson, Kizzire and Simpson. Late-bloomer Armour, in the 30th position, can’t afford much of a letdown if he wants to get to Atlanta for the first time. The biggest movers of 2018 have worked hard to get where they are, but plenty of work remains.

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