Jacob Bridgeman feeling confident again after taking first-round lead at 3M Open

As golfers wrapped Thursday’s first round of the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Jacob Bridgeman birdied five of the final seven holes and found himself in the lead at 8-under-par 63. It was a welcome change of pace for the 24-year-old PGA Tour rookie, who missed the cut in his previous three tournaments.

“Never had struggles with my confidence until these last few weeks, and I told a couple people I felt like I’ve been kicked in the face,” Bridgeman said. “I’m still pretty young, I have to remind myself that. These are all new courses that I’m facing every week.”

Bridgeman, ranked 206th in the world, said he had struggled with his mental game the past three tournaments, despite that being one of his strengths while he golfed for Clemson, winning the ACC tournament and earning a spot on the Korn Ferry Tour.

After last week’s Barracuda Championship in Truckee, Calif., Bridgeman talked with his parents, his college coach and his girlfriend, reminding himself that “golf is not my identity,” he said. “I’m not just a golfer; I have more to my life.” With his former coach, he walked through “some of the stuff we did in college, how we built each other up. He would always walk with me and he would help me.”

In his 22 PGA Tour events, Bridgeman has yet to record a top-10 finish.

PGA Tour broadcast crews wore blue ribbons on their caps and collars on Thursday to remember longtime Sirius XM PGA Tour commentator Mark Carnevale.

The PGA Tour said he died unexpectedly on Monday at age 64.

Carnevale worked his last tournament at the Scottish Open two weekends ago and was scheduled to work this week’s 3M Open.

“I felt like we lost a part of the tour. You know we’re a family out here,” Tony Finau told Sirius XM PGA Tour radio. “I see his smile when I think about him.”

Former Gophers golfer Ben Warian, competing as an amateur on a sponsor exemption, finished his first round at 2 under, tied for 46th. The Stillwater native, who graduated in May, started on the back nine and shot 5 under through 10 holes before missing the fairway on No. 2 and three-putting on No. 3 to post back-to-back double bogeys.

“Certainly on those first nine holes, I proved a lot to myself,” Warian said. “My good is certainly good enough [for the pros], it’s just continuing to kind of tighten up the misses a little bit.”

Warian ended his day with a right-to-left slider putt to birdie on No. 9, to the delight of the gallery of friends and family that turned out to follow him around TPC Twin Cities.

“You name ‘em, I guess they’re out here,” Warian said. “Birdies are always nice, and when they’re accompanied by a couple hundred people yelling as well, it makes it that much more fun.”

Erik van Rooyen, another former Gophers golfer heading to Paris to compete for South Africa, finished 4 over, with two double bogeys on the day.

The 3M Open is positioned as the penultimate tournament of the season-long FedEx Cup competition. So, several of Round 1’s top finishers find themselves looking for a few more points to add to their PGA Tour season total and push them into playoff contention past the 70-golfer cutoff.

“Bottom line, I have two events left until the playoffs, and I’m not in the playoffs right now,” Andrew Novak said. Novak is 84th in the FedEx Cup standings and finished Thursday tied for third at 6 under. “Despite me playing well, that doesn’t really matter. I need to go play better.”

Top 125, 70, 50 and 30 cutoffs guarantee players slots in specific events next year. Martin Trainer, tied for third with Novak and Patrick Rodgers, is 137th in the Cup standings this year. Rodgers is 51st. Mackenzie Hughes, who shot 7 under and is alone in second, is 50th.

“Whatever number you want, I’m focusing on it. But 125 would be great, 70 is obviously the bigger goal, 50,” Trainer said. “I can’t really control that, but I can attempt to control my golf ball.”

Rodgers birdied five consecutive holes in the middle of Thursday’s first round.

“There’s a big discrepancy between being inside the top 50 and getting in the signature events and not having those opportunities, so there’s so much to play for,” Rodgers said. “I’m just trying to play my best golf. I feel like I’m playing well at the right time, which is exciting.”

Billy Horschel, the runner-up at last week’s British Open, was a favorite heading into the 3M Open but withdrew Thursday morning after waking up with a fever.

“Every muscle feels like it’s locked up,” he said. “Tried to do a little warmup in the gym, just didn’t respond. Tried to go out to the golf course and hit some balls. Body is just not wanting to cooperate.”

“I was looking forward to playing here at 3M. Played here last year, had a good finish. The event is well run, so very disappointed not to be able to play here after coming off a really great finish last week.”

Finau, 2022′s 3M Open champion who is ranked 19th in the world, shot 4 under par, while the field’s top-ranked golfer, No. 11 Sahith Theegala, was a stroke better at 5 under. Next year’s U.S. Ryder Cup captain, Keegan Bradley, was 1 under. Defending 3M Open champion Lee Hodges shot 2 over.

Of the 156 golfers, 85 shot under par Thursday, with sunny weather and a slight breeze throughout the day.

Staff writer Jerry Zgoda contributed to this report.