Cameron Champ fires 5-under 66 to win 3M Open.

BLAINE, Minn. — Cameron Champ was struggling mightily through the first half of this year, a frustrating series of performances that pointed him back to his state of mind more than any mechanical flaw.

Like many newlyweds, the 26-year-old was distracted by the delicate balance of passionately pursuing his career while still trying to carve out a healthy personal life at home. He found himself becoming much too upset by a bad round.

There sure wasn’t much for Champ to be mad about at the 3M Open.

Champ fended off dehydration and crisply putted his way to a 5-under 66 on Sunday, winning by two strokes for his third career victory.

“I just took a complete 180 in how I’m waking up every morning and how I’m reacting to certain things and adjusting to certain things,” said Champ, who had five birdies in a bogey-free round to finish at 15-under 269 at TPC Twin Cities.

Louis Oosthuizen, Jhonattan Vegas and Charl Schwartzel tied for second. Keith Mitchell was fifth at 12 under, and behind him were five players tied for sixth.

Former University of Arkansas golfer David Lingmerth shot a 72 on Sunday and finished the tournament at 7-under 277.

Champ joined Collin Morikawa, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau as the only under-28 players to win in each of the last three seasons on tour. He jumped from 142nd to 49th in the FedEx Cup standings, with the top 125 qualifying for the playoff opener.

This month has brought quite the turnaround for the Texas A&M product, after nine missed cuts and one withdrawal over his first 16 starts of 2021. The best finish in that stretch was a tie for 17th at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Champ hit the reset button after missing the cut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit three weeks ago, though, and emerged with a tie for 11th at the John Deere Classic in Illinois.

“After Detroit, I just took a step back and said, ‘You know what? This is enough. I can’t keep going on this way. I’m not enjoying the game,’ ” Champ said.

His wife, Jessica, was surely happy to hear that.

“It’s more so realizing what I want to do in the game of golf and then who I want to be at home. It’s a balance you have to find, and if you don’t, it can really haunt you and it can cause a lot of issues,” Champ said. “So I just feel like the last two months I’ve been in a lot better head space.”

During another 90-degree day, Champ was far from his physical best. He felt some dizziness along the back nine, putting his hands on his knees at one point as he hung his head to try to regain some composure. He had plenty of it on the last hole, after his safe strategy with the tee shot to stay away from the lake landed way left in a trampled, sandy area directly behind a clump of trees.

Champ managed to chip out onto the primary rough, then scoot up the fairway. His approach was a beauty that landed perfectly and rolled back toward the pin. He sank the easy par putt and had enough energy to pump his arms in celebration of his first top-10 finish since last October.

“The Gatorade definitely helped, I think, keep me going,” said Champ, who won the Sanderson Farms Championship in 2019, the year he turned pro, and the Safeway Open in 2020.

Oosthuizen shot 66, too, in a much stronger finish than the previous weekend at the British Open, where his 54-hole lead turned into a tie for third after a fourth-round 71.