3M Open at TPC Twin Cities - Round 1
My Thoughts on Round 1 at the 2024 3M Open
Yes, it’s been a while. I’ve been busy/ignoring this blog/golfing.
After a bit of miscommunication, I was able to get my media pass for the 2024 3M Open. I picked it up on Wednesday night before the tournament started, so I was not able to check out any of the practice rounds at all. I’ll have to plan a bit better for next year so I can get out for the practice rounds and get the pre-tournament feel down.
So, Thursday morning. The temperature was pretty decent for a July day and didn’t break 80 degrees. I’d made a reservation to rent a lens (the Nikon Z 100-400 f4.5-5.6) from West Photo in downtown Minneapolis, and they opened at 10am and I was there shortly after 10 to pick up the lens and headed straight to the tournament after picking it up. My current “long lens” is a Tamron 70-200 G2 f2.8, so this lens was going to give me twice the focal length of what I was used to at the top end, even if it wasn’t an f2.8 lens. They have those for rent, but at over $100 a day for the rental (and needing it for four days) and not getting paid to be out at the tournament, my decision was pretty easy to make. The 100-400 actually worked amazing with my Nikon Z7 and I got some images that I’d never have got with my 70-200 lens, like this shot of Anders Albertson on the 1st tee (his 10th hole for Thursday).
I followed a couple groups around, just to get my bearings back with tournament photography. My badge for the tournament was a “holy grail” of passes and I found out that I could go anywhere I wanted to and check out all the private sponsor areas. I’ll get to those with a later post since I did not check those out on Thursday.
One of the groups I was looking forward to following around was local Stillwater golfer Ben Warian. Ben also played at the University of Minnesota (where my oldest attends), so that was sort of a double whammy for a reason to follow him. Even better, local pro Brent Snyders’ caddie, his brother, Kyle (aka Carlos) was Ben’s caddie. Kyle’s daughter and my daughter attended high school together (but were not friends), so we’ve seen each other around a lot.
Ben got off to a hot start with being -5 after 10 holes, but the 2nd and 3rd (his 11th and 12th holes for the day) beat him up and he double bogied both. Ben unfortunately ended up missing the cut by one stroke, but he really looked great out there and can compete with the pros. I’m looking forward to seeing him at the US Amateur later in August at Hazeltine National in Chaska.
On the long list of golfers I wanted to see and photograph, one of the next I found was Akshay Bhatia. He always seems to be in the upper pack of the field on Sunday, so I watched Akshay all four days hoping he’d be able to make a move and slide up the leaderboard. Unfortunately he didn’t, but he’s young and has a lot of professional golf ahead of him and could win again at any time, which is also why I wanted to follow him around.
Maverick McNeeley was another guy that was fun to watch. Even better, he was in the last group on Sunday, so I got to see a good chunk of his game as well. Another young guy with an amazing game that will be playing on the tour for a long time to come.
After a couple technical issues with a shorter lens, I flipped the 100-400 back on and wandered around more, catching Matt Kuchar teeing off of the 14th hole. Matt was also one of the leaders come Sunday. Unfortunately I was just finishing up grabbing a few shots of the group on the 13 tee, so I wasn’t quite in position to get a decent shot of Matt.
Another good follow is Eric van Rooyen. Eric is from South Africa, but he attended the University of Minnesota along with his caddie, Alex Gaugert. Alex Monday qualified in 2023 for the 3M Open and I got to follow him around on Thursday and Friday last year. I don’t know if he tried or didn’t try this year (he’s not listed on the Monday qualifier leaderboard here), so I’d fathom to guess he did not enter. Eric missed the cut to play the weekend, but he’s got game and will win again.
I ended up staying for about 6 hours, which was shorter than I thought but worth the time. Even though they had some great food options for attendees, they feed us in the media tent so I ate in the media tent all day long. They also carried Pepsi (ugh) products in the tent, so I drank a lemonade or two and had some water. I was able to download files from my camera to my computer and upload shots to my Instagram and Facebook photography pages from the morning, and went back out again with a freshly erased memory card ready to shoot some more. It is a pretty good setup for people who want to get photos up and online quickly for the tournament.
After Thursday, I knew I was ready for the rest of the weekend. I’ll re-cap Friday in a different blog post, so you’ll have to come back to read that. :D