Here’s a look at some of the players in the field at the 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota, who failed to make the weekend.
Cameron Champ looked to be toast.
The defending 3M Open champion opened with 75 and was 6 over through 26 holes. The odds weren’t in his favor to play the weekend this time. But the 27-year-old Northern California native refused to quit. He snagged a birdie at No. 18, his 27th hole of the tournament, before catching fire on the final nine holes. He closed with four birdies on his final five holes, including a 21-foot birdie putt at No. 9 to shoot 68, which secured him weekend plans in the Twin Cities.
A gutsy performance, indeed. Same goes for Rickie Fowler, who straddled the cutline most of the day and made it on the number after a bogey at No. 16, posting a 36-hole total of 1-over 143. So did Maverick McNealy, who had missed just four cuts all season. Double bogeys at Nos. 9 and 11 stacked the deck against him, but he canned a 40-foot birdie putt at 17 and an 8-foot birdie at 18 to give himself a one-strike cushion and lock up a tee time for Saturday.
Here’s a look at some of the players in the field at the 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota, who weren’t so lucky.
Richy Werenski, in his 100th start on the PGA Tour, nabbed the first win of his career on Sunday at the Barracuda Championship.
Richy Werenski, in his 100th start on the PGA Tour, nabbed the first win of his career on Sunday at the Barracuda Championship, the only tournament to use the Modified Stableford scoring format.
Werenski tallied 39 points, including 11 on his last seven holes, to leap to the top of the leaderboard.
Troy Merritt had a 30-footer on the 18th that would have won it but it came up short. He finished at 38 points. Merritt also held the 54-hold lead a year ago before getting tracked down by Collin Morikawa.
Matthias Schwab, in the field on a sponsor exemption, and Fabian Gomez tied for third with 37 points. Gomez scored 16 points on Sunday.
Werenski earned $630,000 and jumps from 70th to 34th in the FedEx Cup standings with the win.
“I knew I needed a big day and then I started off with a bogey, which wasn’t good,” Werenski said. “Just wasn’t in a great rhythm early on in the round, but did a good job of just kind of snapping out of it, stopped trying on every shot, stick with my game plan and just try and make as many birdies as we could.”
Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood Course hosted the event for the first time. Montreux Golf and Country Club previously hosted from 1999 to 2019.
With this win @CudaChamp he gets … ✅ A full exemption thru 2021-22 season ✅ Into next week's PGA Championship ✅ Into this year's U.S. Open ✅ Into the 2021 @Sentry_TOC ✅ Into the 2021 @THEPLAYERSChamp ✅ 300 #FedExCup points
Check out the prize money earned by each player this week at the Barracuda Championship.
In his 100th start on the PGA Tour, Richy Werenski wins for the first time in his career.
Werenski took the title at the 2020 Barracuda Championship at the Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood Course on Sunday, the first year the tournament has been held at the course.
He scored 13 points in the final round in the Modified Stableford scoring format used at the Barracuda, the only event on the Tour schedule to use the format. He finished with 39 points, giving him a one-point lead over Troy Merritt. Matthias Schwab and Fabian Gomez tied for third with 37 points.
The win gets Werenski into the field at the 102nd PGA Championship which starts on Thursday at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
Over the past two months, leagues and athletes around the world have joined in to promote the Black Lives Matter movement and racial equality following the death of George Floyd at the hands on Minneapolis police officers.
But it was a different story on Sunday when it came to PGA golfer Richy Werenski.
Playing in the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities — about 20 miles from the site of Floyd’s death — Werenski was spotted wearing a “Blue Lives Matter” wristband.
Playing 20 minutes away from where George Floyd was killed by police officers, Richy Werenski has been wearing a Blue Lives Matter band this week at the 3M Open pic.twitter.com/LGJ4mOGAqB
Someone should inform PGA Tour player Richy Werenski that wearing a “blue lives matter“ wristband in a golf tournament in Minneapolis is tone deaf at the very least. pic.twitter.com/CCvWo8gJKM
Back in June, the PGA held a moment of silence for George Floyd before each round of the Charles Schwab Challenge — an event that Werenski participated in. A photo search showed that Werenski had been wearing the wristband for over a year. This was from the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in 2019.
Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports
But he’ll almost certainly face questions after deciding to wear the wristband near Minneapolis two months after Floyd’s death.
Richy Werenski has worn a “Blue Lives Matter” wristband all week at the 3M Open, held just miles from the location of George Floyd’s death.
Richy Werenski’s return to the PGA Tour after injuring his wrist in 2019 has been one of the better stories in the golf world.
The native of Springfield, Massachusetts, has made all four cuts since golf returned from its lengthy pandemic break, and Werenski’s rise reached a crescendo in Blaine, Minnesota, this week as he was in the final pairing on Sunday for the 3M Open.
Werenski made an interesting statement, however, when he chose to wear a “Blue Lives Matter” wristband this week at TPC Twin Cities, just miles from where George Floyd’s death sparked a national Black Lives Matter movement.
Floyd’s death, ruled a homicide by a county medical examiner and by an independent autopsy commissioned by Floyd’s family, fueled outrage nationwide. A bystander’s video that showed now-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin holding his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes has circulated widely since Floyd’s Memorial Day death.
Cropped photo of Richy Werenski on the 11th hole during the third round of the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities. (David Berding, USA TODAY Sports)
Werenski, according to his profile on PGATour,com, comes from a family of avid golfers. His father, Michael, was formerly a PGA club professional and his brother, Mickey, played on the Texas A&M golf team.
Werenski’s big break came when he won the Golf Channel’s “Big Break The Palm Beaches,” which aired early in 2015.
The PGA Tour has worked hard to connect with the Black community through the protests, including an empty 8:46 a.m. tee time at both the Charles Schwab Challenge and the Korn Ferry Tour Challenge the week after the death.
In the wake of Floyd’s death, 8:46 has become a symbol for the racial injustice faced by the black community, and the PGA Tour says it wants to do its part to help move forward.
On the PGA Tour’s official website, it reads:
As part of ongoing efforts to amplify the voices and efforts underway to end racial and social injustice, the TOUR has set aside an 8:46 a.m. tee time that will feature no players. The time has been set aside at both Colonial Country Club (Charles Schwab Challenge) and TPC Sawgrass (Korn Ferry Tour Challenge), as 8:46 has become a universal symbol for the racial injustice faced by the black community.
The week after Floyd’s death, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said: “For me, I spent last weekend calling around to my black colleagues and black friends, people that I thought that I could really learn from and I, at that time, I felt vulnerable. I didn’t understand in a world where people say, ‘If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.’ I didn’t understand what the solution was in the short term, but I was committed to make certain I was part of identifying it as supporting it. So for me stepping back and trying to listen to those people that have been affected was the best place to start.”
Michael Thompson and Richy Werenski are all tied atop the 3M Open leaderboard, but who will “step up” on Sunday?
On the 18th hole at TPC Twin Cities, Michael Thompson faced a critical decision.
Having already hit his tee shot into the water lining the right side of the dogleg-right par 5, Thompson, leading by one stroke, had 267 yards to the flag. Should he go for the glory or lay up and try to minimize his mistake? Thompson’s caddie Damian Lopez had a pretty good idea what he should do and let him know.
“It’s time to step up.”
After all, TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota is an Arnold Palmer designed course, and The King would certainly say to go for broke. Thompson ripped an adrenaline-laden fairway wood over the water and on to the green, but it had too much juice and caught the back bunker. But Thompson splashed to within inches of the hole for a tap-in par and a share of the 54-hole lead with Richy Werenski. Afterwards, Thompson put into words how big that shot was for his confidence going into Sunday’s final round.
“There’s plenty of shots out here on Tour, especially this golf course with the water, where you just need to I like to say,’Just sack up and hit the shot.’ To be able to do that, hit a good, quality golf shot that almost held the green and then to get that up and down with that bunker shot, I mean, I’m honestly just proud of myself for stepping up,” he said.
Despite conceding that he fought some early nerves, Thompson strung together three birdies in a row, starting at the fifth and when he made a two-putt birdie at the par-5 12th hole, he owned a four-stroke lead. And yet by the time he opted to go for the green at 18 with his third shot (after a penalty), Thompson’s lead was on the verge of vanishing. His lone bogey of the day at 17 en route to shooting 3-under 68 combined with three birdies in the final four holes by Ricky Werenski has the two 36-hole leaders knotted again at 15-under 198.
“To finish with that par on 18 is huge,” said Thompson, who celebrated with a fist pump. “I really wanted that par, I didn’t want to compound the mistake I made on 17. I think that’s going to bode well for me tomorrow.”
Sunday is setting up for a sprint to the finish line with 12 golfers within four strokes of the lead. Werenski, 28, is bidding for his maiden PGA Tour title while Thompson, 35, won his lone title seven years ago at the Honda Classic. Tony Finau (69) and former Masters champion Charl Schwartzel (66) are the closest pursuers, two strokes behind. Finau, who fired his caddie this week and has swing instructor Boyd Summerhays on the bag, has just one victory to his credit at the 2016 Puerto Rico Open and has the most top-eight finishes with 24 of any player without a win on Tour in the last four seasons. It’s time for him to “step up” on Sunday. Schwartzel, a 35-year-old South African, has two career Tour victories and is returning from injury.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance,” Schwartzel said. “That really was the goal coming into this week, at least have a chance to win.”
Max Homa, whose lone win came at the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship, is solo fifth at 12-under par after 64. Cameron Tringale did one better, shooting a tournament-best 8-under 63 and is part of a six-way tie at 11 under. Of the 12 players within four strokes of the lead heading into the final round, only Ryan Moore and Nick Watney with five wins apiece have hoisted a trophy more than two times on the Tour. For Thompson, the 3M Open is the first time he has led or shared the lead entering the final round since his victory in 2013.
“I haven’t been in this position in a long time,” Thompson said. “It was nice to get my feet wet.”
Last year, it took an eagle at the 72nd hole for Matthew Wolff to win the inaugural 3M Open. Whoever is going to claim the title this year will, in the words of Lopez, have to “step up.”
Werenski is seeking his first PGA Tour title while Thompson hoisted his lone trophy in 2013. They are tied at 12 under at TPC Twin Cities.
Jay Seawell, Michael Thompson’s coach at Albama used to tell the former Crimson Tide golfer, “Go play Michael Thompson golf.” It was his way of telling Thompson that his game was good enough to compete with anyone in the world.
For the first 36 holes of the 3M Open, Thompson, 35, has done just that. He followed up Thursday’s 7-under 64 by shooting a 5-under 66 at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota, and shares the 36-hole lead with Richy Werenski at 12-under 130.
“I think it’s just keeping it simple,” he said when asked to describe what ‘Michael Thompson golf’ meant to him. “The big thing is just try not to overpower the golf course, stay within myself, make good, comfortable swings, aggressive swings to good targets, be aggressive to pins when I can, when I have good numbers, and then if I’m kind of in between, then I kind of play away from the hole a little bit.”
That philosophy, along with a return this season to the fade he grew up playing, has worked quite well this week for Thompson, who entered the 3M Open ranked 151st in the FedEx Cup standings and needs to climb into the top 125 to qualify for the Playoffs, which begin next month.
After hitting all 18 greens in regulation on Thursday, Thompson rolled in seven birdies and one bogey on Friday, stringing together three in a row beginning at the fourth hole and pitching in over a bunker from 60 feet at 14 for another. Thompson, whose lone Tour win came at the 2013 Honda Classic, is known as one of the Tour’s best putters and he ranks third this week in Strokes Gained: Putting, but he didn’t have to make a putt longer than 20 feet for birdie as his irons were dialed in. His lone bogey through 36 holes came at the 12th on Friday.
“That was the one kind of hole that I wish I could take back because I was in a perfect position to attack that flag from the fairway, flared it right and then just made bad mistake after bad mistake to make bogey,” he said.
Thompson’s philosophy of trying not to overpower the course is in stark contrast with that of Bryson DeChambeau, who isn’t in the field this week but has shown that distance gains can take you to the top of the FedEx Cup standings. Richy Werenski is more in Thompson’s camp, and credited his good play through 36 holes to “staying within myself and just kind of letting things happen.”
Werenski, 28, is one of only two players in the field having a better putting week than Thompson. The Georgia Tech product drained a 32-foot birdie at No. 11 and a 21-foot putt at 18 and took advantage of his early tee time.
“I’m a morning person. I wake up early anyways, so I was up at that 4 a.m. wake-up call this morning and I like that,” he said.
Richy Werenski is seeking his first PGA Tour title at the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities.(David Berding-USA TODAY Sports)
Werenski had a sick feeling a year ago when he finished T-39 at the Wyndham Championship in August, and finished No. 126 in the FedEx Cup standings to miss a spot in the Playoffs and had to play the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to improve his status for this season.
“I don’t really want to ever feel like that again, like I felt after Wyndham last year. That was not good,” said Werenski, who entered the week ranked No. 95.
Werenski, who is seeking his first Tour title, and Thompson were three strokes clear of their next closest competitor after the morning wave. That would be Matthew Wolff, who can bash it with the best of them, and is putting up a valiant effort in defending his title, posting a bogey-free 3-under 68. He is lurking at 9-under par. But so far, only Werenski’s game has matched some good old-fashioned Michael Thompson golf. That is why Thompson plans to keep it simple.
“Go play Michael Thompson golf and I’ll be right there on Sunday,” he said.
