{"id":11500,"date":"2024-06-17T08:42:14","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T08:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/?post_type=article&p=11500"},"modified":"2025-06-16T16:27:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T16:27:46","slug":"2024-travelers-championship-at-tpc-highlands-preview","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/article\/2024-travelers-championship-at-tpc-highlands-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Travelers Championship at TPC Highlands – Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

After a thrilling U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 that saw Bryson DeChambeau<\/a> hold off Rory McIlroy<\/a> on the final hole, the Tour heads to the Northeast and back to familiar territory for the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut. One of the most popular tournaments among players, caddies, and fans, its huge crowds make it the second-most attended Tour event, behind only the Waste Management Open. The Travelers is a “signature” event for the second consecutive year, and this time it will not have a cut, featuring 71 of the best players on the Tour.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

TPC River Highlands is a classical, tree-lined par-70 Pete Dye design where shot-shaping is almost required and players are encouraged to get creative and utilize every club in their bag. It is very scoreable yet will challenge players simultaneously thanks to its penal rough, challenging pin placements on small tiered greens, and subtle changes in direction. Players who are accurate with their position off the tee, who can separate from the field with their wedges and short irons, and who can get on a roll with the putter have the best chance for success. 2019 winner, Chez Reavie<\/a> summed up the course quite succinctly. “You can shape it both ways off the tee – hit every club in your bag from longer irons to short irons. It\u2019s just a test of all your shots.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The average winning score since 2010 has been 16-under par and has included a wide range of golfers. There has, however, been a recent trend of more quality, upper-tier players winning this event. The average odds of the last nine winners is +3800 and include elite players such as Xander Schauffele<\/a>, Bubba Watson<\/a> (twice), Jordan Spieth<\/a>, and Dustin Johnson<\/a>. Thanks to its tremendous finishing stretch of holes, it regularly delivers a climactic ending with 14 of the last 20 events being decided by one shot or less. Last year, Keegan Bradley<\/a> torched the course, finishing at 23-under and leading Tour officials to “toughen” up the layout this year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The Field<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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With this being the third straight tournament as either a signature event or a major, fatigue may become a factor at TPC River Highlands this week. This is especially true when considering the mentally taxing courses and difficult scoring conditions of Muirfield Village and Pinehurst. It will be an intriguing week to see how these elite players will respond following the intensity of the past two weeks. For now, every eligible player in the top 35 of the OWGR will be in attendance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The headliners will once again include the top names – Scottie Scheffler<\/a>, Patrick Cantlay<\/a>, Viktor Hovland<\/a>, Xander Schauffele<\/a>, Ludvig Aberg, and Collin Morikawa<\/a>. Past winners, Schauffele, Harris English<\/a>, Jordan Spieth<\/a>, and New England’s own, Keegan Bradley<\/a> all return to tee it up this week in Cromwell. After missing two shorts putts and blowing a two-shot lead down the stretch, Rory McIlroy<\/a> has chosen to skip this event and will sit out until the Scottish Open in a few weeks. He is the only eligible player choosing not to participate this week.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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TPC River Highlands – History<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Designed in 1928 by Robert Ross and Maurice Kearney, the club was originally known as Middletown Golf Club and became one of the most popular courses in Connecticut. By the early 1980s, it was bought by the PGA Tour which hired famed architect Pete Dye to completely redesign the course to fit professional tournament standards. In 1984, the course reopened as the “TPC of Connecticut” and became host to the Greater Hartford Open.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The course underwent another renovation in 1989 by architect Bobby Weed who had Tour players Howard Twitty and Roger Maltbie helping as consultants. The club reopened again in 1991 with almost a completely new front nine holes and was renamed the TPC at River Highlands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When the field arrives in Cromwell this week, they will find a course that has undergone some “competitive enhancements” thanks to how low the scoring was last year combined with Rory McIlroy<\/a>‘s comments about technology having rendered the layout obsolete. While length has not been added, six holes experienced significant changes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWe want the golf course to be a challenge no matter what yardage you drive the ball to,\u201d said Gary Young, senior vice president of rules and competition for the PGA Tour. \u201cSo from the longest hitter to the shortest hitter, you\u2019re looking at whether they are basically taking on the same risk for the same reward. Everything we did was, we don\u2019t want to take it away entirely. But we want to make it even riskier for that guy who\u2019s going to try. And that risk should be rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The fairway at No. 1, a 434-yard par-4, has been narrowed significantly, replaced with rough, particularly in the area where tee shots tended to settle on the left side. Players will be required to be more precise with their tee shots, with right-handed players likely needing to cut the ball back against a right-to-left slope to hold the fairway.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The par-4 dogleg-right ninth hole was also altered by moving the tee box and changing the angle of the drive by bringing the tree line and houses more into play. The heaviest hitters would often cut the dogleg off the tee and take a more direct route to the green. That will be more difficult now. \u201cI\u2019m not saying they can\u2019t do it,\u201d Young said, \u201cbut they\u2019re certainly going to have to take on a greater risk. We also shrunk the size of the green, significantly.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Other changes of note include the narrowing of the fairway, and mounding added, at the par-5, 6th; a much smaller green at the 103-yard, par-3 downhill 11th; a patch of rough replacing a section of the fairway 300 yards out from the tee at the par-4 12th, potentially taking driver out of players\u2019 hands; mounding added and the fairway narrowed at the par-5 13th.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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2024 Travelers Championship at TPC Highlands – Preview<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11507,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"bs_types":[14,15],"bs_tags":[29,73,119],"class_list":["post-11500","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","bs_type-betting","bs_type-fantasy","bs_tag-golf-betting","bs_tag-golf-dfs","bs_tag-travelers-championship"],"acf":false,"featured_image":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/RiverHighlands15Cedited-web-1.jpg","tags_list":[{"id":29,"name":"Golf Betting","slug":"golf-betting"},{"id":73,"name":"Golf DFS","slug":"golf-dfs"},{"id":119,"name":"Travelers Championship","slug":"travelers-championship"}],"types_list":[{"id":14,"name":"Betting"},{"id":15,"name":"Fantasy"}],"bs_author":{"name":"Ron Klos","profile_image":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Ron-Klos-150x150.jpg"},"bs_term_name":null,"is_paid":"true","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/11500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"bs_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bs_types?post=11500"},{"taxonomy":"bs_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bs_tags?post=11500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}