The Travelers Championship has an unforgiving spot on the 2023 PGA Tour schedule.
The tournament, which is held every year at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., is set to kick off on Thursday, just four days after a dramatic U.S. Open across the country in Los Angeles.
In previous years, this would be a tournament that a lot of the game’s best players would skip without thinking twice.
But since it is a designated event, the field looks like that of a WGC or one of the bigger non-majors, like the Memorial or Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Eight of the top 10 players in the world (Jordan Spieth and Cam Smith being the exceptions) are set to tee it up in Connecticut this week, which will give the Travelers some serious juice.
Scottie Scheffler, who finished third at Los Angeles Country Club last week, is in his familiar spot as the betting favorite for the Travelers.
Scheffler is +600 to win at TPC River Highlands, with Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, and Jon Rahm all sitting as co-second favorites at +1000.
Defending champ Xander Schauffele rounds out the top five at +1200, while 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark is +3500 after going off as a +9000 longshot at LACC last week.
TPC River Highlands is a well-known course on the PGA Tour.
It’s a shorter track requiring players to plot their way around it.
While we’ve seen some big hitters win here (Dustin Johnson, for example), this tournament is more about good approach play and putting yourself in good positions to rack up scoring opportunities.
Here are a few golfers who fit that mold:
While a lot of people will be backing folks with good course history this week, Tom Kim is a fine exception to the rule.
He’s a debutante at TPC River Highlands, but he’s still in the beginning stages of his career, and he’s won on debut already on the PGA Tour, so I’m not worried about his lack of experience here.
Kim has struggled for the bulk of 2023, but he seemed to find something at LACC last week.
The 20-year-old finished T8 and was fourth in the field with +7.5 strokes gained on approach.
That kind of form should play well at River Highlands.
The betting world was all over Kim after a red-hot start to his PGA Tour career, but his struggles over the spring have cooled off the buzz a bit. It’ll be interesting to see how many punters jump back in off his strong showing at the U.S. Open.
Another week, another bet on Keegan Bradley at long odds.
The St. John’s alumni didn’t make it to the weekend at the U.S. Open, but that’s an easy event to draw a line through and it doesn’t change the fact that Bradley has been among the most consistent performers on Tour over the last two years.
Bradley also ticks a couple of other boxes that make him worth a shot at this price: He’ll be used to this kind of golf as a native of Vermont and he’s got decent course history here. Bradley has missed the cut in two of his last four trips to TPC River Highlands, but he’s finished T2 and T19 in the other two.
There’s something about TPC River Highlands that speaks to Chez Reavie.
The Wichita, Kansas native won this tournament in 2019 and has finished T46-T25-T8 in his most recent three starts in Connecticut.
Reavie was really struggling early in 2023 but seemed to get back on track in April when he finished T6 at the Valero Texas Open and then T11 at the RBC Heritage.
He hasn’t found those kind of results since, but he’s making cuts, is fresh after not qualifying for the U.S. Open, and has terrific history at TPC River Highlands.