Despite challenges from COVID and LIV, 3M Open’s Hollis Cavner remains undaunted

The attempt of Pro Links Sports and sponsor 3M to upgrade from the long-standing Champions Tour in the Twin Cities to a place on the PGA Tour schedule had been speculated for several months.

Then, on June 18, 2018, it became official with the PGA Tour’s announcement that a weekly event would be returning in 2019, 50 years after the St. Paul Open (and briefly Minnesota Classic) had been played here for the last time.

The first edition of the 3M Open was played from July 4-7, 2019. There was much concern among neutral parties as to how a golf tournament would be able to compete in this state with our holy view of a long holiday weekend in the summer.

As it turned out, doing battle with a foreseen opponent — “up North” — was by far the easiest obstacle that the 3M Open has faced in its first five editions.

Hollis Cavner, majordomo at Pro Links, had added three new pros from the college ranks to the field in 2019: Matthew Wolff, Colin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland.

All those impressed, with Wolff winning and Morikawa sharing second with Bryson DeChambeau

The COVID-19 pandemic then took over North America’s sports world in mid-March 2020, and the second 3M Open was played without fans at the end of July. Michael Thompson won his second Tour event. Sahith Theegala missed the cut as a Cavner special invitee, but he’s now the 14th-ranked player in the world.

The third 3M in 2021 was won by Cameron Champ, a long hitter collecting his third Tour win. The runners-up to Champ were Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Jhonattan Vegas.

Three years later, Oosthuizen and Schwartzel are veterans on the LIV tour, and Champ and Vegas are Nos. 358 and 421 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

It was in October 2021 when Greg Norman announced the launch of LIV golf, a series of 54-hole tournaments. There would be huge signing bonuses paid by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund to bring in a number of the game’s biggest names.

Cavner was back in his office at the TPC Twin Cities on Tuesday, exactly one month until the 152-player field will tee off at the sixth 3M Open.

This question was asked as a statement to Cavner: “You have faced a couple obstacles — COVID-19, LIV — that never could’ve been imagined when this tournament started.”

Cavner smiled slightly and said: “Yes, there have been, and fortunately we’ve had the best partner in the world in 3M. They were with us in playing the tournament during COVID when others were being canceled, and we’re going to have another great tournament while the LIV thing is being straightened out.”

He paused, and then said: “Which in my opinion is on the way to being settled. For the good of golf now, and more important for years to come, we have to get the best players back together.

“I have friends that are now playing LIV … guys like Oosthuizen and Schwartzel. They took the guaranteed money, but they never bad-mouthed the Tour. My problem is with anybody who took the money and then bad-mouthed the Tour.”

With its place on the schedule, late summer and following the British Open, the top defectors to LIV were very unlikely to play in the 3M Open.

There are 48 regulars for LIV, though, and maybe 30 of those would’ve been candidates to try to get into the 3M Open field.

“That could be high, but 15 or 20 might’ve been in our field,” Cavner said. “We’re giving young guys coming into the game out of college a chance to show their talent. We had Morikawa and Hovland, two of the best players in the world now, here. We had Sahith. We had Ludvig Åberg.

“Now those two kids that battled for low amateur at the [U.S.] Open, Neal Shipley and Luke Clanton, are going to be here as new pros next month. That Shipley … he is a character, with a huge game.

“Pro Links has two college tournaments — one at The Floridian in March, another with Augusta University the week before the Masters. We get the best college teams, the best players, get to know them as freshmen, get to know their families.

“I think the PGA University Program, giving tour cards right out of college to the very top players, is a great move. And I can say Pro Links has been out front with all the great golf being played in college.”