Whoever wins this week’s 3M Championship won’t have the opportunity to defend their title next year. After 26 years the popular Champions Tour event is ending its run in Minnesota.
It will be replaced by a PGA Tour event that will run on the fourth of July weekend at the TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota. The 3M Open will feature the younger professionals, and several of the senior golfers are not happy about this event going away.
The most vocal has been Minnesota resident Rocco Mediate. He told reporters on Wednesday he doesn’t agree with the move.
“I think it’s awful,” Mediate said. “Absolutely awful. “We’ve been here all this time, and all of a sudden they’re going to toss us and try to get something better. They very well might have it. The PGA Tour is the PGA Tour, it’s awesome. … But I love this (tour) and we have a great tour and we have great guys.”
Victim of Popularity
The 3M Championship has been a staple on the Champions Tour schedule and saw massive support from the Twin Cities community. Management at the company, based in Minnesota, was looking to get on the PGA Tour schedule in recent years, and finally inked a deal with the tour.
Mediate understands the business side of the decision, but wishes two events could be in the area.
“It shouldn’t have left,” Mediate said. “It’s been a success, people love it, volunteers have been coming for how long? Whatever the reason was, it’s the wrong reason. I don’t buy it.”
Defending champion, Paul Goydos, who is a 20/1 pick by the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook to repeat, told the Pioneer Press he can see the logic behind the move.
“That’s a massive step up in class in a sense,” Goydos said. “It’s going to go from a nice event to the event of the summer in Minneapolis, and that’s a big change.”
Sparse Field for Finale
The big guns on the Champions Tour are taking the week off following the Senior Open Championship. Winner Miguel Angel Jimenez, second-place finisher Bernhard Langer, and season money leader, Jerry Kelly, are all skipping this tournament.
The favorite to win is Kevin Sutherland. The Westgate has him at 9/1. Last year’s winner of the Schwab Cup, has finished in the top 5 the last three years. He was tied for second in 2015, and tied for third in 2016 and 2017.
Kenny Perry is next at 12/1. Perry also has played well here. He has won the event twice (2014, 2015) and was in contention last year until falling back to a tie for seventh.
One player who played at the Senior Open Championship and could end up in the winner’s circle is Tom Lehman, who is 16/1. The Minnesota native finished tied for sixth at St. Andrews last week, and won the Principal Charity Classic in June.
Whoever contends better have their putter working. Goydos rode his flat stick to his fifth career victory, and said his contemporaries should be prepared on the greens.
“I can’t remember faster greens on the PGA Tour Champions than we played this week,” Goydos said last year after his victory.
