The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
World No. 1 Johnson returning to defend crown at Travelers
World top-ranked golfer Dustin Johnson has committed to play in the Travelers Championship in June, the tournament announced Wednesday morning.
Johnson has won 24 times on the PGA Tour, including the Masters last November and the 2016 U.S. Open. Johnson won by a stroke last year at the Travelers, firing a 19-under-par total of 261 at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell.
Andy Bessette, the executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Travelers, recalled what happened after he handed Johnson the winner’s trophy.
“I said to Dustin (as he was walking away), ‘I hope you come back next year,’” Bessette said. “He stopped, looked back and said, ‘I’m your defending champion. I have to come back.’ That’s exactly how it went down.”
Johnson has now won 24 times on the PGA Tour, including last year’s Tour Championship. He also won the European Tour’s Saudi International on Sunday for the second time in three years.
Johnson, 36, also won The Northern Trust and finished second in both the PGA Championship and the BMW Championship. Those results, along with the Masters and the Tour Championship victories, all came after Johnson won at Travelers.
The Travelers was the third tournament held when the PGA Tour returned from a three-month absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament, like many others the rest of the year, was held without fans.
Johnson’s return coincided this week with an announcement from Travelers on Monday that the tournament hopes to have “a limited number of spectators on-site at TPC River Highlands for this year’s event,” which will be held June 24-27.
“What absolutely has to come first is the safety and health of everyone at the tournament,” Bessette said. “On February 10th, I’m optimistic that we will have an opportunity to have fans out there. I don’t know how many.”
The Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Arizona, allowed 5,000 fans per day this past week. Other events in January had allowed just a couple of hundred fans on the grounds.
Grube said he had already gotten feedback from Waste Management and was in communication with tour officials at December’s Houston Open, which allowed approximately 2,000 fans per day.
“I feel good, optimistic about having some people back. We don’t have an exact timeline,” said Grube, the tournament director since 2005. “We were able to help bring the sport back in a safe way (in 2020), something we were very proud of. But it was tough walking around on Sunday afternoon. I had never seen the 18th green look like that (with no fans during tournament week). It was hard for the fans, hard for the players, hard for the sponsors. There was something very bittersweet about it. It was very, very strange to not have all of the crowds there. Everybody is excited to move in a different direction.”
Grube said the tournament is already “planning for multiple scenarios” depending on how many fans are allowed on site. “Some of those plans, we will never use,” he said.
Grube and Bessette have not made any player recruiting trips to tournaments yet because of the pandemic. But having built those player relationships since taking over title sponsorship in 2007 has put Travelers as one of the PGA Tour’s more attractive events.
Bessette said he often sends congratulatory texts to the PGA Tour golfers when they win. He sent one to Patrick Reed after he won the Farmers Insurance Open at the end of January.
Bessette said in addition to thanking him, Reed texted, “See you in June.” Reed, the world’s 10th-ranked player, has not officially committed yet, but that’s a very good sign he will soon.
“If this were 2007, we wouldn’t know anybody. We didn’t have the equity we have with all of the players now.”