Travelers saves golf and contributes to saving lives

CROMWELL — As he stood there Tuesday, making his commitment to the 2018 Travelers Championship, last year’s champion Jordan Spieth talked about holing the only bunker shot to win a playoff in PGA Tour history.

Spieth talked about the gallery’s reaction at the great amphitheater of TPC River Highlands that early Sunday evening in June. He talked about the sound, a sound so loud that he could feel the earth move.

Moments earlier, Tyler Backus, a 16-year-old boy from Fairfield with glycogen storage disease, had stood up at Travelers Media Day and talked, too.

He talked about how his blood sugar must be monitored 24 hours a day and how he must be fed through a port in his belly every three hours. He talked about how his family sets multiple alarms for 11 p.m., 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. That’s so no feeding is missed, or else he will go into seizure. Or worse.

He talked about how he needs injections to boost his immune system to combat illness, not every week. Every day. He talked about how he’d never been over to a friend’s house for a sleep over before. And then Tyler Backus, who is smaller than others his age because of the disease, stood 10-feet tall as he talked about how The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp had changed everything for him.

“I never thought I could go overnight somewhere and feel comfortable in my own skin,” Tyler said.

He talked about going ziplining, fishing, shooting arrows, swimming.

“I felt unstoppable,” Tyler said. “Like I could take on the world.

He talked about making a new friend at the Moose Lodge, where the camps kids sleep if they need medical care throughout the night. Tyler and his friend talked about their lives and he came to realize they had something in common. He was fed through a port in his stomach, too.

And when Tyler was finished talking, nobody at TPC River Highlands felt the earth move, but it was so quiet that everybody could hear a tear hit the floor.

As Andy Bessette, Travelers executive vice president and chief administrative officer, reminded us Monday in 2006, “This tournament was dead.” It was off the PGA Tour calendar, it was going to be an LPGA or Champions event. Travelers stepped in.

“It wasn’t going to become what happened to the Whalers,” Bessette said. And so it didn’t.

Last June, Travelers drew 290,000 fans and raised a record $1.72 million for 165 charities, including its primary beneficiary The Hole in the Wall Gang. Last December, Travelers was selected “Tournament of the Year,” “Most FanFriendly Event,” “Best Sales” and the “Players

Choice,” as picked by the Tour golfers based on services, hospitality, family amenities, community support and attendance.

Yes, Spieth’s bunker shot from 61 feet that had taken a sweet kiss on the green before rolling, rolling into the hole and moving the earth had plenty to do with Travelers ending up as the Tournament of the Year.

“I don’t even know if I’ve ever even heard something like that, including a gamewinning shot in a NBA arena, and that’s about as loud as it gets,” Spieth said. “I felt the ground shake. I’ve watched the shot a thousand times.

“I get chills every time I see it.”

Yet it is everything else about the Travelers … from the care for the players to a young man like Tyler Backus, every bit a champion … that made the state’s great sporting event worth saving.

And now under the Travelers umbrella it thrives.

Spieth, who already had victories in two majors last June and would add a third a month later at the British Open, will be in Cromwell in June. So will 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed and 2017 PGA champion Justin Thomas. That means the past three majors titlists will be at Cromwell. So will Rory McIlroy, who told Bessette he plans on winning the Travelers, Bubba Watson, who has won it twice, and Jim Furyk, who set the PGA Tour record with a 58 at the 2016 Travelers. The field will be deep and impressive.

Still, none of it would have been as good without Spieth, who didn’t tell tournament director Nathan Grube until last week he was definitely coming. He may be a Texan, but after last year, after that shot, yeah, Spieth is part of Connecticut sports lore.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever have another moment like that in my golfing career,” Spieth said. “In a span of 15 seconds, it was as cool as anything I’ve experienced.

“I remember right after I struck it, hopping up, just in time to see it go in and then I don’t remember anything. I just totally blacked out.”

Spieth spoke Tuesday via video feed from TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla., where he is preparing for the Players Championship. A place where he has missed three consecutive cuts, a place where he vows to be more patient. He has four Top Tens in 11 events this year. He had that tremendous final round 64 in the Masters to nearly catch Reed. He also hasn’t won since the British last year.

“I was pretty sick to start the year, so I’m giving myself some leeway on not being full strength until the last, really two months, and those have been progressing nicely,” said Spieth, 24, engaged to be married in November. “Do I feel anxious because my peers are winning and I haven’t this calendar year? Absolutely. I would really like to get in the winner’s circle and feel like I can take a deep breath, feel like you’re playing with house money. I don’t necessarily feel that way right now, but I’m not going to force it.”

As that shot dropped and the earth moved last June, Spieth threw his club. His caddie Michael Greller simultaneously threw the bunker rake.

“Perfectly timed,” Spieth said.

The leaping chest bump wasn’t nearly as finely choreographed. The two kind of went in sideways.

“I was pretty impressed (Greller) didn’t fall back,” Spieth said. “I went into him with quite a bit of force, but he’s a stable dude.

“I think he ended up taking the rake, so I apologize for that. You guys might need to replace that rake on 18. I think it’s at his house.”

And the sand wedge? “It’s not in my bag anymore,” Spieth said. “I have to change my 60-degree. I hit it so often, I have to change it quite a bit. But I know exactly where it is. It’s next to the trophy in my house.”

A perfect place for it.