RADIO
Joe Idone's @TourPicks Exclusive Course Preview and Breakdown for the 2024 Travelers Championship. He offers a preview and concentrated analysis for TPC River Highlands using historical data and current trends to prep for PGA DFS lineups.
As golf fans around the world finally exhale from the electric finish at the United States Open, the private planes have already left North Carolina and have landed in Cromwell, Connecticut where we have yet another Signature Event on the PGA Tour, The Travelers Championship. It's a tournament that annually is one of the most well-attended by fans and the players seem to love this event, but it does feel like many players could potentially use an off week.
That's not the case however on the PGA Tour. We again have a limited field of participants and this week players will be asked a very different set of questions from the golf course at TPC River Highlands. It's hard to imagine a course that would be more of a contrast than Pinehurst No. 2. That said, players know exactly what to expect at the Travelers Championship, and so do we. We have seen some moderate changes to the course in recent years, but ultimately we know the formula.
I wanted to use this piece to hopefully highlight a few different angles and elements that may be less spoken about to provide some value in this course preview. I'm hopeful that you can utilize this for building lineups and making your stat models to provide you with the best possible chances of success this week. Here is everything that you need to know about TPC River Highlands and nothing that you don't.
An Introduction to the TPC River Highlands
Originally opened for play in 1928 as the Middletown Golf Club, the golf course this week has undergone several transformations before becoming known TPC River Highlands in 1984. As with many of the other notable courses in the TPC network, architect Pete Dye was responsible for the design and layout. There have been numerous restorations since, most notable was the 1989 redesign by Bobby Week and Howard Twitty who were brought in to increase the challenge for professional players as the tournament began hosting the Travelers Championship.
The course remains one of the shortest courses on the PGA Tour, but still presents several aspects that have secured its integrity and kept it from being overpowered by the modern player. Keeping the ball in the fairway is a must as this course tends to reward hyper-accurate players such as Jim Furyk, who recorded a 58 at TPC River Highlands in 2016 which is still the lowest score ever recorded at a PGA Tour event.
Ahead of the 2016 Travelers Championship, another renovation project was completed as they redid every bunker on the course. The new bunkers made the course substantially more challenging and a legitimate penalty for professionals. The bunkers are relatively flat but they added steep grass faces which are difficult to get over if you end up on the front side of them. It's ultimately the reason that Sahith Theegala ejected on the final hole of the Travelers Championship. You can't try to bite off too much, as these bunkers are the primary defense mechanism. This is a great example of the restoration work and how it has affected the playability.
Sahith Theegala odds to win Travelers Championship at @BetMGM
Open: 125-1
Before Round 4: 12-1
Before 18th: -250Double-bogey on 18 to finish T2. 😬pic.twitter.com/o6xOnGbZlm
— John Ewing (@johnewing) June 26, 2022
Scorecard:
Course Specs
Since 2016, the course has an average ranking of being the 25th most difficult course on the PGA Tour. It's right in the middle of the pack, despite being one of the shortest setups that we see all season long. There are five holes with water in play, 69 total bunkers, and features 4+ inch Kentucky Bluegrass rough that often requires players to simply chop it out around the greens. The greens are tiny which you would expect from a short course, but they are pretty receptive if you can control your spin which is best achieved from the fairways.
Both Par 5's are incredibly short and reachable for all players in the field, assuming that they are able to find the fairway. Like most short courses, the further that you hit the ball off the tee, the more the fairways will narrow. If you are willing to lay back and hit your tee shot to around the 250-yard mark on most holes, the fairways are very generous, averaging 38 yards wide. If you hit it 300 yards, they narrow to around 29 yards wide. Each tee shot will require a decision based on aggression and position which I believe makes for quality golf.
We have seen multiple strategies deployed at TPC River Highlands with success. Players like Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson have overpowered the course on their way to victory in the past, but I would reckon that the more predictable skill set is one of heightened accuracy and proper course management. The green complexes are a blend of POA/Bentgrass but players have spoken in the past about how they believe that they putt more like a true Bentgrass.
You can see some really low scores around here if a player's irons are clicking. We have seen multiple rounds of 60 or better in the past. The average Greens-in-regulation numbers are above 70%, which is well north of the Tour average. Since they are so small, if you can hit 14-15 greens in regulation, then you are going to be left with a ton of good opportunities to make birdie. The course will penalize you if you make mistakes, but the ability to go insanely low here is unique to TPC River Highlands.
Last year, Jim Furyk made history @TravelersChamp.
What will be this year's low round at TPC River Highlands? pic.twitter.com/ib56ABTdDq
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 22, 2017
Statistical Considerations
I mentioned earlier how there have been different paths to success at the Travelers Championship, but the one most predictable is through Driving Accuracy. I am factoring it in heavily in my stat model. I think it's important to filter in stats mostly from other short courses if you can. There are a number of players who will hit iron off the tee or some of lofted metal, so making sure that you are pulling data from the correct club sets is important.
We have established that Greens-in-regulation rates are high at this course, but I still believe that this is a very sneaky SG: Around-The-Green course. If you look into leaderboard correlation in previous years, the players who succeed at getting it up and down out of the thick rough, and difficult greenside bunkers have a ton of success. It may be a mental thing as you must feel like momentum goes way down anytime you make a bogey out there, especially when those around you may be going low with their scoring.
Surgical precision with your iron play from the 125-175-yard range is also a prerequisite for success. In 2022, 46% of all approach shots came within that range. In 2023, it was 45%. Anytime nearly half of your approach shots are coming from a 50-yard range, it's highly important to factor into your stat model. We're talking about essentially 3-4 clubs that you are hitting half of the shots with into greens. SG: Approach 125-175 yards is key.
Some other stats that I am inputting are SG: Putting (I am using Bentgrass filters), Course History, SG: OTT on courses under 7200 yards, and I am sprinkling in a little SG: Pete Dye into the equation. For a deeper look into the DataGolf metrics on radar plot success and Approach shot distribution, here is the data from the 2023 Travelers Championship.
Approach Shot Distribution (Datagolf)
RadarPlot (TPC River Highlands) vs. Avg. PGA Tour Course
Top-10 Players with the Best Course Fit Rankings
- Scottie Scheffler
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Xander Schauffele
- Rory McIlroy
- Ludvig Aberg
- Christian Bezuidenhout
- Denny McCarthy
- Collin Morikawa
- Si Woo Kim
- Russell Henley
Good luck and enjoy the 2024 Travelers Championship!
