The current world No. 4, Johnson is the highest-ranked player in action at the 3M Open as he looks to rebound from a disappointing display at the Memorial Tournament last week when he missed the cut after carding consecutive 8-over par scores of 80 in the opening two rounds.
Johnson looked uncharacteristically wayward at Muirfield Village but there are reasons to believe his wobble could be short-lived.
He won the Travelers Championship last month and throughout his career he’s displayed a penchant for recovering quickly from disappointing performances, winning a tournament in his next start after a missed cut on three separate occasions.
Unlike Johnson, Finau enjoyed an excellent weekend at the Memorial Tournament, leading after 36 holes before finishing eight.
The world No. 17 is still looking for a second win on the PGA Tour and will fancy his chances of doing so on a course where he finished tied for 23rd last year. Fleetwood, meanwhile, makes his return to the PGA Tour for the first time since the novel coronavirus pandemic ground golf to a halt in mid-March.
The trio will begin the tournament at 7:30 a.m. ET from the 10th tee on Thursday, preceded 10 minutes earlier by a group containing Brooks Koepka, Keith Mitchell and Charles Howell III.
Koepka, who alongside Johnson is the only player in the field this week to be ranked among the top-10 players in the world, has racked up just one top-10 finish since the PGA Tour resumed in June—he finished seventh at the RBC Heritage last month—as he continues to battle a knee injury that forced him to sit out three months at the end of last year.
Muirfield Village wasn’t kind to Koepka over the last two weeks, with the four-time major winner missing the cut at the Workday Charity Open and then finishing tied for 62nd last week.
Meanwhile, after three consecutive missed cuts, Mitchell finished tied for 22nd last week, while Howell is still looking for a first top-40 finish since January.
Defending champion Matthew Wolff is also included in one of the featured groups and will begin his title defense at 12:30 p.m. ET from tee No. 1 alongside Max Homa and Branden Grace.
Wolff finished second at the Rocket Mortgage Classic last month and recovered from a poor opening round of 77 last week to finish tied for 22nd at the Memorial Tournament, while Homa has recorded three top-10 finishes earlier this season and Grace makes his debut at TPC Twin Cities.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of Thursday.
Selected tee times (all times EDT)
Tee No. 1
6:50 a. m. —Scott Brown, Seamus Power, Henrik Norlander8:50 a. m. —Dylan Frittelli, Harris English, Denny McCarthy12:30 p. m. —Matthew Wolff, Max Homa, Branden Grace12:40 p. m. —Paul Casey, Bubba Watson, Pat Perez1:10 p. m. —Jhonattan Vegas, Charley Hoffman, Charl Schwartzel
Tee No. 10
6:50 a. m. —Kyle Stanley, Emiliano Grillo, Roger Sloan7:20 a. m. —Brooks Koepka, Keith Mitchell, Charles Howell III7:30 a. m. —Dustin Johnson, Tony Finau, Tommy Fleetwood8 a. m. —Russell Henley, Chesson Hadley, Xinjun Zhang12:40 p. m. —Troy Merritt, Ryan Armour, Lucas Glover
Players rankings
The world No. 4 and No.6, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka are the only two players ranked in the world top-10 to be in action at TPC Twin Cities this week. World No. 12 Tommy Fleetwood and No. 17 Tony Finau are the next-highest ranked players in the field, followed by world No. 27 Paul Casey and No. 29 Bernd Wiesberger. Defending champion Matthew Wolff is ranked 55th in the world.
3M Open TV and live stream coverage
The tournament will be broadcast by Golf Channel and CBS. On Thursday and Friday, coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on Golf Channel and runs until 6:30 p.m ET.
Over the weekend, coverage begins on Golf Channel at 1 p.m. ET, running until 3 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, before switching to CBS.
Live stream will be available on PGA Tour Live from 7:45 a.m. ET on Thursday and Friday and from 8 a.m. ET on Saturday and Sunday.