TPC River Highlands will unveil new clubhouse this year
CROMWELL — Each year as the Travelers Championship draws near, the temporary structures go up around the TPC River Highlands layout and excitement grows as tournament week approaches..
“A lot of times people get excited when the tents go up, whether it’s the residents or people in the town, or sponsors who come down,” Travelers tournament director Nathan Grube said. “We usually start to get that excitement in early June. Now we’ve been getting that all year, getting updates from everybody. I get emails on that all the time from people who are excited, and I am, too.”
The reason for the updates all year long is because a new clubhouse is being built. It is approximately 40,000 square feet — compared to the old one which was about 15,000 — and should be completed in plenty of time for the tournament, which will be held June 20-23 at TPC River Highlands.
“This is probably was the piece that was always hanging out there, the last big project on the radar of big things we needed to do if we want to keep running the tournament,” Grube said.
Since Travelers took over title sponsorship with the 2007 tournament, a state-ofthe-art practice facility was built, as was a building to host The First Tee of Connecticut adjacent to the practice facility. Also, all of the bunkers and greens were redone, in addition to adding some bunkers.
That’s not to mention the amenities, like chartering planes from the U.S. Open each June to take the players, their families and their caddies to Connecticut for the tournament. Travelers does whatever it can to make it easier for the pros to focus just on golf.
It’s no wonder the tour players have voted the Travelers Championship as the “Players Choice” the last two years. It is an award voted on exclusively by PGA Tour members and is based on players’ experiences with tournament services, hospitality, player and family amenities.
And now, the new clubhouse, which broke ground in the days following Bubba Watson’s third win at TPC River Highlands, should be ready sometime in May, Grube said.
“I was here when they took the tractors to it,” Grube said about the old clubhouse. “To be able to walk through this (new clubhouse) in April, it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to be done.’ I get asked about the clubhouse all the time from our tournament partners. Players have asked about it. Bubba has asked. … It represents growth, progress and moving forward. There are a lot of things it symbolizes and people are excited about that.”
Grube said the layout of the two-story clubhouse is similar than the one at TPC Boston, which hosts the Dell Technologies Championship. It has been shifted from its previous layout a little further away from the first tee at TPC River Highlands.
Gone is the old putting green and chipping area, along with where the handwritten leaderboard was for many years. The clubhouse now encompasses that entire area. The golfers instead will have an outside deck, where they can look out into the Fan Zone, which remains intact.
In between the new clubhouse and the Fan Zone will be what Grube is calling “an event lawn” where tables and umbrellas will be set up and games like chess and cornhole will be contested. It’s basically right in the general area where the old driving range tee shots were hit from.
The pro shop, dining areas, locker rooms for both men and women and everything else will all be ready to go when the tournament begins in June. The PGA Tour ran the project, keeping the folks at Travelers in the know every step of the way.
One request Travelers made — and received — was an event hall that holds approximately 200 people. The tournament hosts numerous events during the week, some off-site. Now they can hold them on site and also rent the hall out during tournament week or during the year.
“This was a big tournament need, a big event room to host a lot of our stuff during tournament week would be very, very helpful,” Grube said. “Whereas before we were stuck if we had to cancel an event (due to weather), now, we won’t have to.”
Bartlett Brainard Eacott handled the construction project, Grube said.
“They did an unbelievable job. They knew the window was tight, but pushed hard to get this done. They knew what they were getting into, having 11 months basically (to complete the project). They worked around the (winter) weather,” Grube said.
The First Tee will hold its annual charity golf tournament in June, right before the Travelers Championship.
“To have something permanent in the community that says, ‘This is part of the tournament, the tournament is moving forward and we are continuing to grow’ feels like another step forward,” Grube said.