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This week's field includes 36 players ranked in the top 100 of the Official World Rankings, with 8 of those in the top 50. Notable top-100 players include Scottie Scheffler (#1), Hideki Matsuyama (#30), and Tom Kim (#34). That's a drop from last year, which saw 42 top-100 players and 11 top-50 players. The field also includes 1 player in the top 25 of the FedEx Cup Standings.

Past champions in the field are Kurt Kitayama (2025), Lee Hodges (2023), Tony Finau (2022), and Cameron Champ (2021).

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The major season wrapped up in style as Ryan Fox won the British Open at Royal Birkdale, birdieing the final hole to beat Cameron Young by a shot. It was the golf equivalent of a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth, and it made Fox the first major champion to birdie the 72nd hole for the win since Cameron Smith did it at St. Andrews in 2022, a stat that stung for Young, who was runner-up that day too.

Fox's path there was anything but smooth. A first round 72 left him tied for 85th, and it took a third round 62 to push him into contention, two shots behind leader Sam Burns. Young made a late charge before a bogey at 18 dropped him to nine under, and Si Woo Kim briefly had a share of the lead before late back nine bogeys ended his bid. That left it to Fox and Burns coming down the stretch. Standing on the 18th tee, Fox told his caddie, Dean, that he was going to take the hole on and try to win it right there. He did exactly that, closing with a birdie on one of the toughest finishing holes in major championship history.

At 39, Fox took the long road to get here. He turned pro in 2011, struggled to find his footing on the Australian Tour, and eventually made it work on the DP World Tour. He broke through with a win at the Ras al Khaimah Classic in 2022, added a string of runner-up finishes, and changed his career trajectory in 2023 by winning the BMW PGA Championship, beating Tyrrell Hatton and Aaron Rai by a shot. That set up his full-time move to the PGA Tour, where he broke through in 2025 with wins at the Myrtle Beach Classic and the RBC Canadian Open. His major record before this week was thin, just two top-20s in 28 tries, with a T-16th at the 2019 Open at Portrush his best showing. It's the kind of late-career breakthrough that echoes Mark O'Meara, who had just seven top-tens in his first 61 majors before winning the Masters at 41, then following it up with an Open Championship win of his own at Birkdale, the very course where Fox just broke through, beating Brian Watts in a playoff that same year. Don't be surprised if Fox finds his way into contention again this year in the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

As for this week, Scottie Scheffler is making a surprise appearance in Minnesota. His tee to green game remains elite, but the putter has been the story of his season all year. Call it roughly a 1 in 3 shot at winning.

One more reminder as the season winds down: this week and the next two stops are about climbing into the top 70 for the playoffs, and it's the top 100, not 125, that get PGA Tour cards for 2027.

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This week's tournament heads to TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota, a 7,431-yard, par 71 layout that has hosted the 3M Open since 2019. The course has generally gotten tougher over the years, with the scoring average climbing from 69.45 in year one to as high as 71.44 in 2022. Last year brought a rare easy week: calm conditions helped Kurt Kitayama post a 23-under total in a one-shot win over Sam Stevens, while Jhonattan Vegas won at 17 under in 2024.

Despite five sharp doglegs, 72 total bunkers (33 guarding fairways, 39 guarding greens), and 10 lakes in play off the tee, this remains a bomber's course. The greens run small at 6,500 square feet but are considered manageable rather than tricky, which tends to reward good putters.

Expect hot, muggy conditions all week, with highs in the upper 80s Thursday and Friday and low 90s over the weekend. No thunderstorms are in the forecast, so it should play out as much a test of stamina as anything else.

Hitting greens has been the common thread among recent winners here. In 2019, winner Matthew Wolff hit 60 of 72 greens, ranking T-6th in that category. Cameron Champ, the 2021 champion in this field, ranked 8th in driving and 22nd in greens hit that year. More recently, Kurt Kitayama hit 60 of 72 greens (83.33%) last year, tying for 7th, and Jhonattan Vegas ranked T-7th in 2024.

Putting matters just as much. Lee Hodges ranked 4th in Strokes Gained Putting during his 2023 win, and low putt counts have gone hand in hand with contention here in past years. The course also produced 2,098 birdies last year (48th most on Tour) and 70 eagles, so players who make a lot of birdies and eagles week to week tend to translate that form well here.

One more pattern worth knowing: this event has a history of crowning players you might not expect at the top of the leaderboard, so don't rule out a surprise contender.

For a deeper look at how this week's field stacks up, check our Composite Rankings.

Premium subscribers get our full Who to Watch breakdown for the 3M Open, from best bets to under-the-radar sleepers.