BLAINE — Despite being sandwiched between The Open Championship and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the third annual 3M Open Championship at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine still features big names.
South African Louis Oosthuizen and No. 2 player in the world Dustin Johnson are two of the headliners for the 3M Open which will be played July 22-25.
Oosthuizen finished tied for third in The Open Championship at 11-under which was his third top-three finish in a row at a major.
Johnson was also in the top 10 at The Open at 7-under and finished tied for eighth.
Oosthuizen is making his first start at the 3M Open and said he got to Minnesota at 2 a.m. Monday, July 19.
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“(The 3M) made it a lot easier than a normal travel from the U.K.,” Oosthuizen said. “We were on the charter on Sunday night, arrived at 2 a.m. here Monday morning, go have a nice rest and go straight into the next tournament.”
Even if travel was easy for Oosthuizen he said he wasn’t planning on spending a lot of time on the range during practice sessions at TPC Twin Cities.
“I was doing a little bit of work on putting yesterday, but not much work on the range this week,” he said. “I'll do a bit of work with my physio, and other than that, just resting up and waiting for tomorrow to start and just try and get the mind as fresh as I can.”
Johnson feels like he’s in a good place mentally headed into the 3M Open. With no fans last year, Johnson withdrew after a Round One score of 78 and is making his second start at TPC Twin Cities.
“I mean, mentally I'm in a good place,” Johnson said. “I feel like the game's in good form, so I'm looking forward to a good week.”
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Coming off The Open, Johnson took Monday off at TPC Twin Cities to rest.
“I mean, most important just to make sure you're rested,” Johnson said. “For me, I took Monday off and just rested just to kind of get back on this time zone, get the body feeling good again after a long flight.”
Johnson added he won’t change anything about his approach this week from playing links golf at The Open.
“I mean, I try not to change the way I play golf,” he said. “Even been going over there, you just hit different kinds of shots. You still — even playing links golf, you've still got to hit your numbers. You're always trying to land it in a specific spot or hit it a certain distance. I didn't have to change anything. Just the ground's a little softer (at TPC Twin Cities).”
“Really nice track. Played nine holes yesterday, played the back nine this morning and really strong back nine, really good golf course,” Oosthuizen said. “I'm swinging well and I'm putting nicely, so I just need to not make that many thinking errors. That happens when you come off a major week. I think you're a little bit sort of out there with the few decisions you make, but it's the one thing I'm trying to avoid this week.”
Johnson credited the 3M Open for making it easy to play after a major outside of the United States.
“3M does a great job with setting up the tournament,” he said. “They take care of us very well. The golf course is good. The golf course is really good. It's in very good condition. So anytime you've got a golf course like this with the grass is perfect, greens are good, it's fun to play.”
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CONRAD ENGSTROM may be reached at 218-855-5861 or conrad.engstrom@brainerddispatch.com. Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/the_rad34.
