Travelers
the team traveled to Brooklyn for a weekend series.
In 2020, there were no hoops that Dostaler could have jumped through to attend. Spectators were barred from last year’s Travelers Championship due to COVID-19. Only tournament staff and media watched as Dustin Johnson sank his putt on the 18th green to cap off his victory. No one was around to cheer as fan-favorite Mickelson charged to a lead after the second round.
This year, the crowds will return. The tournament will allow roughly 10,000 fans per day — a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands that have attended in years past. But to the golf faithfuls in and around Connecticut, something is far, far better than nothing.
“I’m super stoked,” said Kenny Legan, who moved to Connecticut from Chicago eight years ago and first attended the tournament in 2016. “I was trying to find some really back avenues way to get in [last year]. There might be a fence sightline that you can see over a fence or something. I never went that far, but I at least Google maps’d it.”
Suffice to say, Legan is excited to return in a conventional fashion.
“I was really bummed I couldn’t go last year,” he said. “The fact that the best golfers in the world were right down the
street, it was so close yet so far. So I’m very excited to get back there this year.”
The Travelers Championship is one of golf’s best-attended events. It’s twice won a PGA Tour Player’s Choice award for best tournament. The professionals who roll through Cromwell every year praise the atmosphere.
“When I think about the droves of people that are normally around 18, it creates its own stadium there,” threetime champion Bubba Watson said last year. “It’s really remarkable. So it’ll be sad [without fans], but at the same time it’ll be great getting out here and letting people watch us play their golf course.”
“I feel like the support obviously at home is massive, but in general here you have just some of the loudest and biggest and
best crowds of any tournament that we see on the PGA Tour,” 2017 champ Jordan Spieth said.
Rory McIlroy once noted to tournament director Nathan Grube how surprised he was to see fans circling the first tee box for an early Thursday morning start. That type of support is a rarity — it’s seen at majors, maybe, but not your average PGA Tour event.
Travelers, though, is different. “I think that’s a reflection of the fact that we’re a little starved for major sports,” said John Emra, a Fairfield native who’s attended the tournament since 1992 and has played in the Wednesday pro-am before. “For us, as you think about major professional sports, it’s our four days to shine. And people come out.”
Said Legan: “I remember the first year that Spieth came, the fans were just thanking him for being there. ‘Hey Jordan, thanks for coming.’ It was cool that people appreciated that. It’s great to have it here. I think it’s the one week of the year on the sports calendar that Hartford gets to be the main stage . ... I think the fans are a big part of why the [golfers] come back.”
The fan support has an impact on the golfers who feed off of the crowds and feel at home in Cromwell, but the relationship between pro and spectator is a two-way street.
Dostaler now works for the Connecticut State Golf Association and credits the Travelers Championship for charging his love of the sport. Emre cherishes a photo he took of his son and Spieth in 2018. His son, now entering high school, is a diehard golf fan and will try out for the school’s team. Tyler Millen, a graduating senior at Ellington High who played golf for the Knights, attended each tournament from 2017-19.
He met Spieth and McIlroy at the 2017 pro-am with his grandparents. Watching some of golf ’s best pros tee off only made him want to play more.
“It increases my love of golf exponentially,” Millen said. “Seeing these guys make these crazy shots and seeing the way guys like Bryson [DeChambeau] and Brooks [Koepka] and Phil hit the ball so far, it’s just watching ‘Happy Gilmore’ over and over 100 times a day. It just makes me proud that I play golf.”
Mike Cerulli is in a similar boat as Millen. Now a student at UConn, he was a captain for Trumbull High’s golf team and caddied for his uncle in the tournament’s pro-am tournament several years back. He’d often attend the tournament with friends of his who also golf.
“For those of us that competed in high school, we’re the only high school sports where spectators aren’t allowed,” Cerulli said. “When you get to go out to TPC River Highlands and see thousands of people out there who love the game, it really does renew your love for the game and the competition of the game.”
They’ll be back this year. So will the thousands of other fans with similar stories and experiences. While the crowds won’t mirror the one that shook the 18th green four years ago when Spieth holed out from the bunker to win a playoff against Daniel Berger, the silent, somewhat awkward finish of 2020 will be a thing of the past.
Golfers, fans and tournament officials are thankful for that.
“How exciting is it going to be on Sunday, to have thousands of fans around the 18th green as our new champion sinks the final putt?” Travelers executive vice president Andy Bessette said last month. “It won’t just be Nathan and I looking at each other and giving each other high-fives about what a great ending it was last year.”