Former champion Tony Finau will bid to bounce back from his Open nightmare with a second victory in the 3M Open.
Finau made a solid start to the year's final major with an opening 71 at Royal Troon but missed the cut by four shots after slumping to a second round of 81 in Friday’s tougher conditions.
The world number 19 ran up a triple bogey on the ninth in a front nine of 41 and also made a quadruple bogey on the 12th, losing a ball off the tee on both holes.
Finau had been in superb form before making the trip to Scotland with three consecutive top-eight finishes, including a tie for third in the US Open at Pinehurst, two shots behind winner Bryson DeChambeau.
"The game feels pretty good," the six-time PGA Tour winner said in his pre-tournament press conference at TPC Twin Cities.
"I didn’t have the result I wanted last week, that second round was playing extremely difficult and I didn’t feel like I played bad, I just hit a couple bad tee shots that cost me a lot of shots, which it can do in links golf.
"Overall, I’ve had a nice run over the last month and just hope to continue that good form into this week.
"My family loves this place, I love being here. It’s a golf course that I really enjoy and seems like I’ve grown quite a cool fan base here, so I love coming back and playing in front of them."
Fellow American Lee Hodges will defend the title he won last year in dominant fashion, a closing 67 completing a wire-to-wire victory by seven shots over compatriots JT Poston and Kevin Streelman and Scotland’s Martin Laird.
Poston was three shots behind Hodges playing the par-five 18th but went for the green in two and hit his second shot into the water in front of the green to run up a costly triple-bogey eight.
Laird had surged through the field with a closing 64 to record his first top-10 finish for more than a year and comes into the event on the back of finishing 21st in last week’s Barracuda Championship, ending a run of three straight missed cuts.
Open runner-up Billy Horschel is also in the field, but Justin Rose, who finished alongside Horschel at Troon, withdrew on Monday.
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