Sponsors ready for roar to return
As the long, angular figure of Dustin Johnson drew closer on the 18th fairway at the 2020 Travelers Championship, Nathan Grube surveyed the natural amphitheater that surrounds the final hole at TPC River Highlands.
“There literally were 38 people, we counted,” the tournament director said Monday when Travelers announced it was extending its title sponsorship through 2030. “Which is impossible. Everyone knows our event and what we’re famous for. There should have been the loudest roars you could possibly hear.
“I felt like, ‘Oh man, our community loves this event
so much. These are their memories. This is theirs.’ That was the hard part.”
It is easier to quantify the 3-under par round and 19-under total score Johnson shot to hold off Kevin Streelman in June and collect a $1.33 million paycheck. It is easier to quantify the $1.6 million Travelers still managed to raise for area charities despite the COVID pandemic that cleared River Highlands of spectators.
What’s more difficult is to quantify was how quiet that Sunday afternoon was in Cromwell. As one of those 38 people, let’s leave at this: Instead of a roar of thousands so loud the earth shook when Jordan Spieth holed his bunker shot in 2017, you could hear a bird chirping from a nearby tree. One bird. Deafening in its 2020 symbolism.
“Last year was one of the more depressing things I’ve ever seen,” said Travelers executive vice president/ CAO Andy Bessette. “I don’t want to be depressed two years in a row. We want fans back out there. We were out there on Sunday, ‘Ah, this is really cool, except we’re by ourselves.’ I want somebody to go scream and yell with me other than just me and Nathan. Our fans are the best in the world. To be able to have as many as we can and be safe, we’re ready.”
COVID doesn’t play by anybody’s rules. Nearly three months away, it’s impossible to know exactly how many fans will be allowed in 2021. “It’s not in the hundreds, it’s in the thousands,” Grube said.
Golfers make the golf. Galleries make the event. Sponsors ensure it is an event. And this event, which dates to the 1952 Insurance Open at Wethersfield, was as good as gone in 2006 before Travelers saved it.
And then, led by Bessette and Grube, Travelers did the damnedest thing. It did more than just breathe some life into it. Travelers, which recommitted for 10 years in 2014 and again Monday for six more, turned the four days at River Highlands into one of the premier events on the PGA Tour. Most fan-friendly tournament of the year, the Players Choice, Travelers has won them all.
Yes, the new practice facilities were vital. The new clubhouse is terrific. The course, yielding but fair, is perhaps the sport’s predominant therapist after the beating the golfers’ psyches takes the week before at the U.S. Open. A charter awaits them to whisk them off to Connecticut, where they annually find the second-largest galleries in golf.
Grube remembered shortly after Travelers took over before the start of its initial 2007 event when an interviewer said how sorry he was they got stuck with the week after the U.S. Open. Years later? Another interviewer asked how did they get so lucky to get the week after the U.S. Open. The field last year was stellar. Already, Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and three-time champ Bubba Watson have committed for this June.
All those challenges and doubts about the date and what Travelers was getting into in 2006? It’s probably best to remember Bessette was once one of the premier hammer throwers in the nation. A member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that did not compete because of Jimmy Carter’s boycott, he has known questions about the insurmountable Russians and East Germans. So these questions? These doubts?
“They set off the rage inside Andy,” he said.
Which is kind of funny because the big guy is one of the nicest you’ll ever find.
“The golfers see tournament directors all the time, right?” Grube said. “We always want something from them. When they see title sponsors come out (at other PGA Tour events), it’s a very different conversation. When Andy sits there with a notebook and he says to Bubba or Bryce or whoever, ‘What can we do to make the event better?’ They look at you, ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ When they see you deliver, the word spreads.”
They have a shared philosophy: The date doesn’t make the tournament. The tournament makes the date.
Bessette goes out with Grube to events two, three times a year. They don’t call it recruiting. They call it solidifying friendships. Bessette texted Watson about something funny that happened over the weekend. Bubba shot back “ha ha.” He texted congratulations to Justin Thomas right after he won The Players Championship a few weeks ago. Thomas immediately fired back a thumbs-up.
Bessette has a closet filled with onesies. Pink ones for girls. Blue ones for boys. A player on tour has a baby, he sends a onesie along with a note of congratulations.
The secret to Travelers’ success? “It’s not a secret,” Grube said. “It’s not a gimmick,” Bessette said. Treat people well. Forge relationships. And along the way forge their way in the pantheon of Connecticut sports history.
Last year’s event, of course, was like none other. And as Gov. Ned Lamont, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, Travelers CEO Alan Schnitzer, Bessette and Grube gathered with host Chris Berman for the virtual announcement, the work, the planning, the uncertainties, the cooperation of 2020 became evident.
“Safety was No. 1,” Bessette said. “We said it in our sleep. That was our mantra.”
Testing, more testing, protocols, more protocols. The NHL and USGA came to observe and learn. The most powerful piece Travelers week pulled off was a minimum number of positive tests after they had begun to mount at the first two events. The other piece, Bessette said, was they proved to themselves they could still raise $1.6 million without fans, without a pro-am and other sources of revenue. Travelers stood tall. It paid the full title bill even though it didn’t get what it bargained for. Others, like presenting sponsor Stanley Black & Decker, did the same.
“They understood this was a small window in a long lifespan of this tournament,” Grube said. “They understood the mission.”
The mission has meant more than $20 million for more than 800 charities since Travelers took over the event. After a significant fire at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford this year, Travelers and Travelers Championship gave $1 million in matching donations.
“Inspiring,” Monahan said. “It’s a snapshot of the heartbeat of this event.”
Although we talk plenty about Travelers saving the state’s biggest sporting event, Monahan pointed to something else during the economic downturn in 2009 when the PGA Tour was facing the contractual end of several title sponsorships.
“Travelers was the first to extend and extend long-term,” Monahan said. “In retrospect, that was a pivotal moment for the PGA Tour.”
The company has been part of the event since its inception 70 years ago. And by the time 2030 hits, it will be the longest run by a title sponsor. The Travelers Championship team has stuck together for several years, and that has been important.
There is a feeling of rebirth with this announcement. Spring is back. Sports are back. Grube guaranteed this announcement will lead to the ripple of effect of more sponsors signing long-term with the tournament.
“Connecticut digs in,” Grube said. “Connecticut can create something really special. You look at that formula. Look at what Jim Calhoun did here with UConn when he got here in the ’80s. Look at what Geno Auriemma and Chris Dailey have done since they got here in the ’80s. Consistent teams that are digging in, and excellence is what they want to achieve. We feel very proud to be part of that.”
Yes, masks probably will have to be worn by spectators. That will not stop the applause, and barely muffle the cheers. We’ll hear more than the chirp of one bird when the last putt drops in June.
“It will be very different than last year, that’s for sure,” Grube said. “You’re going to hear some roars back at TPC River Highlands.”