With an incredible US Open just behind us, the PGA Tour stays in New England for the Travelers Championship.
It has been another week where the LIV Tour has dominated the news cycle with Brooks Koepka and Abraham Ancer officially joining the breakaway tour. The former still remains in the field for this event though.
Often after a major the field can be on the weak side, but that is not the case here with many of the biggest names in golf in attendance at TPC River Highlands.
In form Rory McIlroy comes into the event as favorite at 10/1 but Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and Sam Burns will all fancy their chances here. Thomas is the only of those that has actually had a top 10 around this track in the past though.
Some big names have won the event. Dustin Johnson two years ago and Bubba Watson on three occasions but it often throws up an unexpected winner so this is a very open tournament.
Scoring should be low. You have to go back to 1993 to find the last time this was not won with a double digit under par score. Patrick Cantlay — still an amateur at the time — shot a 60 as a 19-year-old, and perhaps more famously, it was the venue for Jim Furyk’s PGA Tour record 58 in 2007.
The lowest round in PGA TOUR history 5️⃣8️⃣
A look back at @JimFuryk's historic 58 @TravelersChamp in 58 seconds.#TOURVault pic.twitter.com/ktExmmavij
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 21, 2022
The course is going to give up a lot of birdies and so often this event comes down to who can hole the most putts. The fairways are generous and players will be hitting plenty of greens. So getting it going with the flat stick is imperative.
McIlroy will be a lot of people’s pick this week and it is easy to see why. Not only is he in great form, but he can score with the best of them. In a birdie-fest he has every chance of not only keeping up, but running away with things. But the record for players after playing the US Open is not great here and particularly being right up there on the final day after winning the week before, it would be no surprise to see him run out of steam a little.
Picking a winner for the event is hard because of just how much of a shootout this event can become. McIlroy is hard to back against with how he has played of late. But it is local boy Keegan Bradley that is the pick for this one.
He has four top 10s in his past eight starts and played really well last week at the US Open. The extra motivation that a home crowd can give can be the thing that gets him over the line for his first win since 2018. Two missed cuts here the past two years is a concern, but he is playing much better golf right now and he does have two top tens here in the past including finishing as runner up in 2019. 30/1 looks to be a great price as he bounces back from a disappointing Sunday at the US Open.
The Boston fans chanted @Keegan_Bradley's name as he walked up the 18th fairway Saturday.
He'll start the final round two shots off the lead. pic.twitter.com/E8VNLJNeGE
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 19, 2022
Cantlay has a great record here and it has perhaps gone under the radar just how well he is playing lately. He has been incredibly consistent, becoming an almost permanent fixture in the top 10, but perhaps does not have the wins his form has deserved. That can change this week. We have seen in a number of his wins that he can win in a shootout and this week may be no different. Only McIlroy has a better scoring average over the past five years at the course. There are so many positives for Cantlay and not many negatives. 12/1 may be the only one as it is of course on the short side, but it does not seem like bad value.
A tournament like this is wide open, but there are so many of the big names that have a real strong case here. The PGA Tour is fighting to show they are the premier golf tour still, and don’t be surprised to see them set the course up to produce some fireworks.
