He sat at the podium Tuesday and lauded the strength of this week’s 3M Open field while generally pumping up the tournament.

“I feel like each year we’ve gotten a better field,” he said. “This year maybe is our best, and if that trend continues, this is going to be a premier tournament for a lot of years on the PGA Tour.”

No, that was not executive director Hollis Cavner, or even tournament director Mike Welch — the men whose job description revolves around organizing and selling Minnesota’s lone PGA Tour event.

It was Tony Finau, the No. 19-ranked player in the world who won the 2023 3M Open and has played in the event each year since its inception in 2019. And, somewhere along the way in those five years, Finau became the face of the tournament.

It’s not like a Genesis Invitational, which Tiger Woods officially hosts, but it almost feels that way. Finau is an unofficial spokesman of sorts who consistently speaks highly of the golf course and the way the tournament is run. It’s well known by now that Finau’s wife and family children travel with him each year to Blaine. They all stay together in a house on a pond and fish after Finau is done practicing or playing for the day.

Finau has been heavily featured across the tournament’s promotional materials in the past. That such a popular, accomplished player is so committed to the event that possesses such an undesirable spot on the PGA Tour calendar — smack dab in the middle of The Open and the Olympics this year — has been a Godsend for the event.

Finau’s win here two years ago was heavily featured in the popular Netflix series Full Swing, which only added notoriety for the still-young tournament.

The 34-year-old’s efforts, whether intentional or not, to raise the tournament’s profile have not gone unappreciated by the local fan base. Through his commitment to the 3M Open, Finau has become a fan favorite around these parts.

“I feel the support. The fan base here, I feel like my fan base has really grown,” Finau said. “This is a very special tournament to me and to our family. I think our series on Netflix had a lot to do with it as well and maybe the growth of the tournament. Hopefully it continues to grow.”

You can tell Finau is rooting for the 3M Open, because he feels a part of it. That was evident in the “we” he would occasionally use Tuesday to describe the event. That cannot be something he often says about the tournaments in which he plays.

“Yeah, not a lot, not a lot,” Finau admitted with a smile. “3M has been great to me. It’s really a staple tournament for me. I think I’ve played just a small part in helping this tournament grow, so I do feel like a little bit of a ‘we’ when I talk about this tournament, because I do feel connected in a way to Blaine, to Minnesota and to this golf tournament. I just think I always will. It’s a special tournament for me. It is my third victory on the PGA Tour, but it almost seems like it was my first, you know? I don’t know why, but it’s just a special place for me to be a part of.”

That win in 2022 was the first of consecutive victories for Finau. It was a springboard that seemed to shoot him up into another stratosphere of players. He hasn’t forgotten it. Finau said it’s “all good vibes” every time he’s back in Blaine.

His family members, he noted, “just expect that we’re going to be here.”

“I don’t know that we even had a conversation,” Finau said. “We know pretty much every year this is probably going to be on the calendar. Just one of those premier tournaments that we enjoy as a family.”

The more he uses words like “premier” to describe the tournament and treats it as a must-stop event, the more other high-end players may raise their eyebrows and wonder what all the fuss is about in Minnesota and, in the process, raise the image of the tournament as a whole.

“I hope that’s the case,” Finau said. “Being a PGA Tour member for 10 years, I know how important every golf tournament is. To help this tournament kind of grow in just a little way that I have, it’s been an incredible thing for me.”

Regardless of the stature of the 3M Open, fans attending this week, and in years to come, can count on Finau teeing it up at TPC Twin Cities.

“It’s a golf course that I enjoy, it’s an area that I really like, and a tournament that I just love playing every year,” Finau said. “So I see myself being here many years to come no matter my results and my outcome. It’s just a place that I love to come to and my family loves to come to, and we enjoy being here. … I’ll be here to support it no matter what.”

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