NEWSLETTER
2024 Travelers Championship – This is a demanding stretch of golf, and I’ll be fascinated to see who’s up for the challenge for the third week in a row. Muirfield Village presented a daunting task as a lead-in event to last week’s third major championship of the season. While this week’s track, TPC River Highlands, stands out with its unique features, it isn’t nearly as demanding, it requires a strategic game plan and precision.
The 2024 Travelers Championship brings us to the last Pete Dye course of the season. The par-70 layout stretches out to 6,835 yards from the tips, the third-shortest course on Tour this season. In past years, we’ve seen a wide array of skill sets show up to Cromwell, Connecticut, and win, which is what Pete Dye sets out to do in all of his designs.
Unlike the Memorial signature event a few weeks ago, the 2024 Travelers Championship is a no-cut event, a format that significantly changes the dynamics of the game. After Rory McIlroy decided to take a few days off, we’re looking at a 71-man field.
When the field arrives in Cromwell this week, they will find a course that has undergone some “competitive enhancements” due to unusually low scoring last year, combined with Rory McIlroy’s comments about technology rendering the layout obsolete. While the course’s length has not been increased, six holes have undergone significant changes.
This week’s agronomy features rough consisting of 4-plus inch Bluegrass/Fescue and a Bentgrass/Poa annua mixture on the greens and fairways. The course’s beauty is enhanced by numerous lakes and ponds, with water coming into play on only five holes. In the style of Pete Dye, the course, especially on the back nine, entices players to take shots over some of these water hazards. The penal rough is the course’s primary defense, forcing players who end up off the fairway and in trouble to lay up instead of going for the green with their approach shot.
With an average driving distance of only 284 yards, it has one of the shortest average driving distances on Tour. Additionally, with fairways being the 10th most narrow and many holes being tree-lined doglegs, many players opt to use less-than-driver clubs from the tee. The significant reason for this is the penal rough, which has been grown to 4+ inches long for this week’s tournament.
In order to prevent the 2024 Travelers Championship from turning into a complete birdie-fest, the pin positions on the greens are typically placed in tougher locations. Birdies aren’t given away easily on a Pete Dye course. Many of the green complexes are also angled away from the direction of the hole.
The green surfaces are a combination of “northeastern” Poa annua and bentgrass. This is not the bumpy inconsistent “west coast” Poa that is often complained about out west.
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2024 Travelers Championship Sleepers and Longshots
J.T. Poston
We haven’t seen a lot of ‘longshots’ take down signature events since their inception last season, but this is one of the courses where I think it’s possible. Last year’s winner, Keegan Bradley, was playing exceptionally well and had a legitimate case to be on the Ryder Cup team in the fall, but the leaderboard behind him showed what’s possible here. Bradley was followed by Zac Blair and Chez Reavie before you get to the Schefflers and McIlroys of the world.
I was surprised to see Poston’s name at the top of the chart when I looked at who’s performed well on short courses with easy scoring conditions. Not inside the top five or ten, but at the very top, side by side with the no. 1 player in the world. Poston, a historically consistent form player, has the potential to go on hot streaks when he gets his game squared up, and I believe he’s in it right now. He missed the cut at Valhalla, but he’s played well in the three starts since, including a T12 at Colonial and a T32 last week at Pinehurst.
He finished second here in 2022, which doesn’t hurt. A 100/1 outright winner might not be your cup of tea in a loaded field like we have at the 2024 Travelers Championship, but he’s worth a look at +225 for a top 20.
Brendon Todd
With the TPC River Highlands undergoing significant changes on six of the 18 holes since last year’s birdie fest, I think a higher premium will be put on fairway finders off the tee. There are a few Tour stops where Brendon Todd is dead on arrival because he’s so far behind the average golfer in terms of driving distance, but that keeps him undervalued when teeing it up at the 2024 Travelers Championship.
His baseline skill set is toward the bottom of this field, which is why he’s 400/1 to win, but when you adjust for this week’s test, he’s an interesting look in the finishing position market.
