Rory big score for Travelers
Rory McIlroy will be looking to complete two golf “grand slams” this year. The first is on the world stage. The second would be a distinctly New England thing.
If McIlroy can win the 81st Masters at Augusta National in April, he would become only the sixth golfer in history to have won all four major championships — the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. Prior to the inaugural Masters in 1934, Bobby Jones won the original slam as well, which was then the British and U.S. Opens and the U.S. and British Amateurs, and is the only golfer to do it in the same calendar year, 1930.
But unlike the others, McIlroy has put himself in position to also become the third PGA professional to win the New England Slam, after the former world No. 1 (and current world No. 3) announced last week he would play at this year’s Travelers Championship for the first time.
Since he won the Deutsche Bank last September in Norton, a win at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., would make McIlroy a New England Slam winner alongside Phil Mickelson and Olin Browne. A winner is, by the way, what he made tournament director Nathan Grube and Travelers executive vice president and chief administrative officer Andy Bessette feel like when they got the news at 5:10 a.m. last Friday that all their recruiting efforts had finally paid off.
“We were dancing in the street when he told us he’d like to play in our tournament,” Bessette said, “but we didn’t know for sure until he pushed the button to commit.”
When McIlroy informed the PGA Tour he would come to River Highlands only a day after the end of this year’s U.S. Open at Erin Hills in Erin, Wis., it was the payoff for three years of relationship-building efforts with McIlroy by Grube and Bessette. They have labored since 2006, the year before the Travelers officially took over as principal tournament sponsor, to upgrade the field and the facilities and have succeeded in both.
But bringing McIlroy to Connecticut is a coup of enormous proportions.
The two of them not only travel to a number of tournaments around the country to sit and chat with players, their representatives, caddies and families, but like most great golfers they also pursue in the anticipation business. In fact, they have consistently asked perhaps the most important question when chasing golf’s biggest names: “What can we do to make it easier?”
They’re not talking about the tournament itself, of course. On that end they’re probably working to make it more challenging each year. But coming off the taxing week that is the U.S. Open challenge, many of the top players are looking for a week off, not another four loops around a golf course.
Aware of that, Bessette and Grube have for a decade tried to come up with any way they could think of to make it easier for players and their families to get to Connecticut and make the stay convenient for not only the player but everyone who travels with him. Which brings us to “the charter.”
That is not the only reason one of golf’s biggest names will be in New England in June, and it’s probably not the main one either, but knowing Travelers will accommodate moving him and his accoutrements from door-to-door from Wisconsin to Connecticut on a free charter flight didn’t hurt.
“People tend to think these guys are flying on private planes, and many of them are, but flying on your own jet isn’t cheap and most players are pretty cost conscious,” Grube said. “It’s not why they come here, but it’s all a part of what we’re trying to do.
“Players come to the Travelers because of what they’ve heard about how other players and their caddies and families are treated by Travelers. They come because Andy has gone out to tournaments with me to meet them and get to know them.
“Travelers tries to anticipate what they need. We try to take them from where they drop off their U.S. Open courtesy car until they leave here eight days later. Travelers really tries to take care of the players. It’s an extension of who Travelers is. The charter is just a piece of it.”
True, but quite a nice piece, I might add.
The significance of McIlroy’s decision is that far more than the golf world knows who he is. McIlroy has already won four major championships (U.S. Open, British and two PGAs) and is one of only three golfers to have won three major championships by the age of 25. The other two — Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — may be the two greatest golfers of alltime, so you get what we’re talking about here.
McIlroy has also already won 13 PGA tour events, has twice been the tour’s leading money winner, twice PGA Player of the Year and three times European Player of the Year. To say his decision to come to Connecticut had an impact would be an understatement.
“One of my neighbors congratulated me on Rory coming to play here,” Grube said with a laugh. “I told her, ‘I didn’t know you knew much about golf.’ She said, ‘I don’t but I know about Rory.’ ”
McIlroy adds to a field that has gotten increasingly better since the first Travelers Championship in 2007. Certainly his addition will bring it the kind of star power that will have golf fans abuzz.
“Rory resonates outside of golf,” Grube said. “The day we announced it, I got 100 texts and emails from interested volunteers, sponsors and even other players.”
That day McIlroy issued a statement saying, “I’m delighted that the Travelers Championship is part of my schedule this year. It’ll be such a great experience. The course should really set up well for my game and I’m really looking forward to teeing it up there in June against some of the tour’s best players.”
When he does, he’ll be looking to win more than a golf tournament. He’ll be looking to win our own New England Slam.