Tour News

Travelers Championship: Picks and Preview

Published

11 years ago

Jun 19, 2013

The PGA Tour heads to TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., this week. Predictably, there’s significantly less depth to the field this week than there was for last week’s U.S. Open. Predictably, too, the pros will be facing a vastly easier set up at the TPC course, and the winner will almost certainly be double digits under par.

Like Merion, however, this course is short. At 6,841 yards, TPC River Highlands consistently plays as one of the easiest courses on Tour. Last year, Australian Marc Leisman took home the trophy in Connecticut. Fredrik Jacobson and Bubba Watson were the previous two winners. This small sampling points to a simple fact: Any style of player can win the tournament.

With the greens running just over 10 on the Stimpmeter (about 3 to 3.5 points slower than Merion), players will have a chance to make aggressive runs at birdie.

The field this week is headlined by U.S. Open winner Justin Rose, but features only two of the top-10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Here’s a look at who could lead the birdie brigade at the Travelers Championship this week.

Justin Rose: 14-1 odds

Last week’s winner at the U.S. Open, Justin Rose will take a timeout from his post-victory publicity tour to play golf this week. Sure, he necessarily has the best odds heading into the tournament, however, the probability of a letdown is high for Rose this week. The Englishman has finished inside the top 10 at TPC River Highlands three times. If he has enough left in the tank, he could make it two wins in a row.

Hunter Mahan: 16-1 odds

Mahan finished T4 at the U.S. Open last week and T14 at the Memorial three weeks ago. Hitting an obscene 85-plus percent of fairways at Merion, Mahan’s perennially superlative ballstriking was off the charts. He’s also a horse for the course, this week: He’s finished T2 twice and T4 twice in 11 starts at the the tournament.

Bubba Watson: 18-1 odds

Bubba Watson won the Travelers Championship in 2010, and he finished second at the tournament last year. Although he wasn’t impressive at the U.S. Open (T32), he was at least able to make the cut at an event he has historically struggled in. Watson prefers to roll the ball aggressively, and that’s an approach that ought to work at TPC River Highlands this week.

Lee Westwood: 18-1 odds

Westwood hasn’t played the Travelers Championship very often. Indeed, he finished T51 in his only appearance in the tournament. At the U.S. Open, he finished T15, and has finished inside the top 10 in his last five finishes. Although he lacks experience at the course, Lee Westwood is hot right now. He’s capable of going low (14th in scoring average) and is more comfortable on slower greens.

Jason Dufner: 20-1 odds

Jason Dufner has been something of a ghost this year (aside from the viral phenomenon of Dufnering). However, with a fantastic final-round 67 at the U.S. Open, he’s reasserted himself. He’s not a horse for the course, by any means. However, “the Duf” is a streaky player, and it’s possible his finish at Merion could be the beginning of a streak of fine play.

Rickie Fowler: 22-1 odds

Rickie Fowler is due for another win on Tour. He played well at Merion, finishing 10th. Although he hasn’t played the Travelers Championship since 2010, when he finished T13 in his last appearance in the tournament. Fowler, who often struggles with the accuracy of his approach shots, will be helped by the TPC’s large greens.

Charley Hoffman: 28-1 odds

Although he blew up during the final round last year, Charley Hoffman played the TPC course well for the first three days at last year’s Travelers. With four top-10 finishes this year, Hoffman has been on form, and his putting has been solid (27th in strokes gained-putting). He’ll be motivated to make amends for his performance last year and could go home with the trophy.

Frederik Jacobson: 33-1 odds

The winner of the 2011 Travelers Championship, Frederik Jacobson will be happy to to return to a course where he has some good memories. The Swede will be looking to rebound after a missed cut at the U.S. Open. Perhaps, the extra practice days will pay off for Jacobson and he’ll win for a second time at the TPC course

John Rollins: 33-1 odds

Ninth in greens in regulation on Tour this season, John Rollins has been a solid performer at TPC River Highlands in the past. Additionally, he’s 27th on Tour in birdie average, and has the right formula to go low in Connecticut. He finished sixth in his last start at the FedEx St. Jude, and is poised for another quality showing.

Padraig Harrington: 40-1

Harrington is a dark horse this week. At 40-1 odds, the Irishman is a speculative play. However, he’s made the cut in all of his starts at TPC River Highlands, and he cobbled together a T21 at the U.S. Open last week. He’s gotten progressively better of the past month, and although his stats this year aren’t eye-popping, he’s a proven winner on Tour and he’s playing a course where he’s scored well. Don’t count Paddy out.

*odds according to Bovada.com

Your Reaction?

LIKE0
LEGIT0
WOW0
LOL0
IDHT0
FLOP0
OB0
SHANK0

Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

19 hours ago

Jul 25, 2024

Brian Knudson

Every week we spot some really cool and custom putters out on the putting green and in tour players’ bags. This week is no slouch with some really interesting and beautiful putters being tested. Let’s take a look at some of the standouts we found.

Tyler Duncan: Scotty Cameron Phantom T-11.5

The Phantom 11 is a pretty wild putter by Scotty’s standards with a multi-material design that boosts MOI for more forgiveness. Duncan’s T-11.5. takes the stock model and moves the shaft to the center of the putter head. We don’t mean a center shafted version, but the shaft is installed in the center, behind the face as well. We don’t have any official details on this T-11.5 but it looks like that setup should create a putter where the face points towards the hole or target, similar to a L.A.B. putter.

Zac Blair: Scotty Cameron 009.M Cameron & Co. “Longneck”

Blair might be in possession of the largest Scotty collection on tour! It seems like every week he has something new, and flat-out gorgeous, that he is trying out. I have seen a lot of 009.M putters over the years, but never one with a long plumbers neck on it. This 009 is a Masterful that utilizes additional CNC machine work to reduce the amount of hand polishing needed to complete the putter. The long, or tall, neck on the putter usually is used to reduce the amount of toe hang and make the putter more face balanced. The face contains a very shallow milling while the sole features a tour truck, tour only, diamonds, and the rare Circle L stamp. The Circle L was made for Scotty’s close friends who lost matches or games and was meant to poke a little fun at their misfortune.

Paul Barjon: PXG Prototype

There are a lot of putters out there that become so widely used and popular that other manufacturers will borrow some of the design cues. The Spider is one of those putters and it looks like PXG has made a prototype putter for Barjon that has some similar features. This proto has a tapered mallet shape with twin wings that come out from either side of the rear. Twin movable weights sit in each wing on the sole and the sole features a plate that is bolted in place at the corners. The top contains a single siteline and the face uses PXG’s advanced pyramid face structure.

Odyssey Ai-One Cruiser Broomstick #7

More and more long, counterbalanced, and alternative putters seem to be showing up recently. The long, or broomstick, putter is making a comeback and more than a few players have joined Adam Scott in using that style. Odyssey has thrown its hat in the broomstick arena with a new Ai-One Cruiser model. The head shape is the very familiar #7 model, but with the shaft going into the center of the club head. An Ai-One face is there to help keep ball speed consistent on off-center hits and three white lines are on top for framing ball and aligning the putter.

TaylorMade Spider Tour S Broomstick

Another option in the long putter is TaylorMade’s Spider Tour S broomstick that we saw around the putting green. The head looks to be a little larger than the standard Tour S and that makes sense with the broomstick-style putters demanding heads near or over 400g. A TPU Pure Roll insert is installed in the face and the shaft is a more traditional double-bend design, just much longer! There isn’t the True Path alignment on top, just a full darker grey finish with a single siteline. Two moveable weights are out in the wings of the putter to dial in the specific weight a player might want.

Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 3M Open

Your Reaction?

LIKE12
LEGIT5
WOW3
LOL0
IDHT0
FLOP0
OB0
SHANK2

Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2024 3M Open

Published

3 days ago

Jul 23, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX is on site this week at TPC Twin Cities for the 2024 3M Open for the penultimate event of the PGA Tour’s regular season.

The photos are flying in from Blaine, Minnesota. We’ve already assembled general galleries and a fresh Tony Finau WITB.

Check back throughout the week for more photos!

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

Chris Gotterup’s TM P-7CB irons – 2024 3M Open

See what GolfWRXers are saying in the forums.

Your Reaction?

LIKE10
LEGIT0
WOW0
LOL1
IDHT1
FLOP0
OB1
SHANK0

Equipment

Collin Morikawa’s pre-Open equipment adjustments

Published

1 week ago

Jul 18, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.

Three years later, Morikawa has once again changed his irons to deal with the unique Scottish turf.

Morikawa has been using TaylorMade P730 blade short irons (7-PW), P7MC mid irons (5-6) and a TaylorMade “Proto” 4-iron with a cavity-back construction this year.

However, he switched into a new set of TaylorMade P7CB irons (5-PW) before finishing T4 at last week’s Genesis Scottish Open, to go along with his familiar “Proto” 4-iron. TaylorMade’s P7CB irons are the finalized versions of the “Proto” 4-iron that Morikawa has been using, except they remain unreleased to retail.

According to TaylorMade, Morikawa switched into a full set of the new P7CB irons to aid with turf interaction, just like he did prior to his 2021 Open victory.

Morikawa is honing in on his winning formula overseas.

Morikawa also has switched from his usual TaylorMade Qi10 5-wood to a lower-launching TaylorMade P790 3-iron equipped with a Project X HZRDUS 105 Hybrid shaft. The loft of the club has been bent down to 19 degrees.

TaylorMade says that Morikawa switched into the new driving iron In order to “have an option to hit something lower that will roll out in the fairways.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article.

Your Reaction?