Travelers Championship
A look ahead to this week’s PGA Tour event at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, where fans will return along with many of the world’s best golfers, including defending champion Dustin Johnson, above.
As Jim Furyk approached the 18th green, crowds packed the natural amphitheater chanting his name. When he sank the 2-foot putt, the roar that rose above Cromwell was loud enough to reverberate throughout the sports world.
Furyk’s round of 58 wasn’t enough to win the Travelers Championship in 2016 but remains the best round ever recorded on the PGA Tour.
“He’s walking up the hill and there were 50 cameras in his face, and Jay Fishman was there, in his wheelchair, battling ALS, very public with it,” remembers Nathan Grube, the Travelers’ tournament director. “He was off to the side and Jim, in his moment, sees Jay, goes over, takes off his hat, kneels down and talks to Jay, thanking him for saving the tournament.”
It was one of the countless, indelible memories the PGA Tour’s Connecticut stop has left behind since 1952. Fishman, who died two weeks later, played a decisive role when The Travelers stepped in as the title sponsor to keep the tournament at the TPC River Highlands in 2006. When Fishman offered to donate $58,000 to Furyk’s charitable foundation, Furyk wanted the money to go to ALS research. They agreed to split. Yes, it was Furyk’s moment, but it was ours, too.
The Travelers is meant to be savored in person. It brought big-time sports to Connecticut, has engraved golf ’s legendary names on its trophy, and it has stayed in our backyard through the generations.
“You look at how the players talk about it,” Grube
says. “I think this feels like a home game for every tour player. These crowds embrace every champion like their own. It’s not like, if you win here, ‘Oh, yeah, but you’re not from here.’ For whatever reason, every champion feels like this is their event.”
It has only been five years since Furyk made history here, only four since Jordan Spieth’s incredible shot from the bunker to win in 2017, only two since the amphitheater was last filled to watch Chez Reavie put the finishing touches to his 2019 title. But thanks to the COVID19 pandemic, it seems like it has been forever since we’ve had the Travelers. Although attendance will be limited, we will be so much closer this week to having a signature piece of our summer back in its rightful place.
Nobody really knew how this was all going to play in 1952.
The very week the Hartford Chiefs were playing their last homestand before abandoning Bulkeley Stadium and the city, pro golfers gathered at the Wethersfield Country Club for the first Insurance City Open. Ted Kroll, who’d received a serious head injury and three Purple Hearts during World War II and was about to become a father, took refuge in a neighbor’s garage near the 16th hole as the back end of a hurricane drenched the course. He then came out and finished it off, his $2,400 first-place check enough to buy a high-end Ford, Chevy or Studebaker.
Kroll, like so many champs, would come back again and again. In 1956, he was tied with this kid, a 27-year-old named Arnold Palmer, and lent him a putter for the first playoff hole. Palmer won it, his first U.S. victory, and he returned in 1960 and won again, in a playoff.
Last year, the tournament was played without fans — the PGA pulled it off as well as anyone could have expected — but this is not a made-for-TV movie. It is Connecticut’s big summer picnic — we bring the food and they bring the drama. With tickets fast approaching sellout status, there will at least be 10,000 fans or so each day this week as the great names trekking back East after the U.S. Open in San Diego to give us our show.
And that feels so right, so welcome now. If there’s poetic justice, there’ll be a playoff next Sunday.
Of 69 tournaments played, 23 have been decided in a playoff. “The CBS people joke about it,” Grube says. “‘Of course there’s a playoff, it’s the Travelers.’ ”
There was a time when Connecticut fans, given the complexities that come with being wedged between New York and Boston, might’ve wondered if a PGA tournament really belonged here. Maybe the course was too easy. Maybe we could never get a desirable date on the schedule. Maybe the big names would skip it.
Charlie Sifford won here in 1967 and history took notice. Lee Trevino came and beat Lee Elder in a memorable playoff in ‘72, and Billy Casper kept coming back and winning, for the fourth time in 1973. Sammy Davis Jr. brought out big names in golf and entertainment while he was involved. The Whalers came and went, the Patriots flirted and jilted us, the tournament stayed. UConn rose to prominence in men’s and women’s basketball. Double A baseball returned to Hartford.
Through it all the tournament has stayed. Since Travelers saved it and built upon its foundation, the best players in the world continue to sign on, including five of the top-10 players this year. The champs, guys like three-time winner Bubba Watson,they still become our guys.
Grube has been involved since 2004, when he interviewed for the job of tournament director while Buick was nearing the end of its run as title sponsor.
“It’s something tournament directors are very aware of,” Grube says. “How stable is this event? I was doing some research on it. The more research I did, there was a ton of community support. I was here maybe six or seven months when Buick let us know they weren’t coming back, and honestly, everybody knew something was going to happen. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, no, we’re no longer going to have golf in Connecticut,’ it was, ‘What was going to be the next version of it?’ ”
History shows the tournament will be part of our summer for years to come, and at last we can begin to savor it again. It feels right.