Travelers Championship: Three players to back at this week’s PGA Tour event at TPC River Highlands

The Travelers Championship has a tough spot on the 2023 PGA Tour schedule. The tournament, which takes place at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., is set to tee off on Thursday, just four days after a lot of players grinded through a Sunday round in Los Angeles.

If it weren’t for the new elevated event imitative from the Tour, this would be an easy skip decision for most of the game’s elite players. But that isn’t the case this year.

Eight of the top 10 players in the world (Jordan Spieth and Cam Smith being the exceptions) are set to play in Connecticut this week and that will give the Travelers some serious juice.

Scottie Scheffler, who was in contention at Los Angeles Country Club before finishing third, is in his familiar perch as the betting favorite. Scheffler is +600 to win this week with Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm all co-second favorites at +1000. Xander Schauffele rounds out the top five at +1200, while newly-minted U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark is +3500 after going off at +9000 at LACC.

Schauffele is the defending champion at this event, but most people remember the 2022 Travelers because of the huge mistake that Sahith Theegala made on the final hole.

TPC River Highlands is a well-known course on the PGA Tour. It’s shorter and rewards good positional play and hitting your spots rather than just hitting it a mile, so we’ll target some players who fit that bill and have some good course history this week.

The other two players on this list will have some positive history at this track, but I’m willing to back Tom Kim in his debut this week.

Kim caught the golf world by storm last fall and into the winter, but he’s slowed down in 2023. However, the South Korean seemed to find something at Los Angeles Country Club with a T8 performance that was largely built on his second shot. Kim gained 7.5 strokes on approach last week and now heads to a course that typically rewards that kind of iron play.

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Another week, another bet on Keegan Bradley at a big number. Bradley missed the cut at the U.S. Open, but he’s generally been in good form for the better part of two years now. Bradley has missed the cut in two of his last four trips here, but he’s finished T2 and T19 in the other starts. He may not be in peak form coming in, but he can win in tough fields, has local ties to the course and has some good history here.

There’s something about TPC River Highlands that agrees with Chez Reavie’s game. The Wichita, Kansas native won this tournament in 2019 and has finished T46-T25-T8 in his three starts here since his win. Reavie was really struggling early in 2023 but seemed to find something in April when he finished T6 at the Valero Texas Open and then T11 at the RBC Heritage. He hasn’t replicated that form since, but he’s making cuts, is rested after not qualifying for the U.S. Open and has terrific history at this track.

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