PGA Tour: "The Travelers Championship": Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).The golfers' charter flight from SeaTac to Hartford has landed, but the reverberations from last week's US Open at Chambers Bay continue. Most of us weren't at Chambers Bay, but some of us watched plenty of the action on TV. One armchair critic's thoughts about what was apparently something of a Marmite experience:

2).Whatever we think about the greens, the course, the spectating options, the whole damn thing, we saw a fantastic finish; unfortunately won in the end by the last man standing after his closest pursuers threw away their claims to the title, but Jordan Spieth is soooo consistent that, even after he looked to have thrown the tournament away on #17, he bounced back immediately.
Unfortunately Branden Grace couldn't do that and Dustin Johnson arguably putted for the win and wound up snatching defeat from the jaws of a play-off. A thriller though, energised by Rory's mid-round run and King Louis's birdie barrage.

3).Unfortunately from a GB point of view, with the exception of Rory our guys hardly showed up; no-one better than Fleetwood, Warren, Justin Rose and Jimmy Gunn, all tied for 27th.
Especially disappointing from Rose, who seemed to have attracted hecklers for his second tournament running, but even more so for the likes of McDowell and Donaldson who missed the cut completely, and Casey, Donald, Poulter and Westwood who were collectively 14 over par on a Sunday when there were "low rounds out there".

4).Congratulations to Shane Lowry who waddled on the fringe of contention all week long. He's increasingly becoming a presence in big tournaments on a certain type of course.
And congrat's to the Aussies and South Africans who each placed four golfers higher on the leaderboard than the leading Englishman, Scot or Welshman. Cameron Smith is a star in the making and what a coming out party, in America anyway, for Branden Grace.

5).I don't think anyone was helped by the strange confluence of a new venue that pretty much no-one had seen, and a rookie TV Network in Fox (for Golf anyway) who failed on just about every objective assessment of coverage. Just dreadful.
Now to look forward, in anticipation for Oakmont next year, and in dread to Erin Hills for 2017.

6).From a PGA Tour season standpoint, welcome FedEx points for Molinari and Westwood as they struggle to secure a Play-Off place.
Not so good from Donaldson, who badly needs a good result, and Donald and McDowell who are really struggling. Just a maximum of nine "Tour" events remaining and most Europeans will only be playing three or four of them. Donald and Molinari make their "Travelers" debut this week on a course that should definitely suit Frannie and will suit Luke if he can keep his tee ball straight.

7).Hartford's TPC River Highlands will be softened by a month of above average rainfall but weather for the tournament's first few days should be fine, if progressively cooler. The greens WILL be green, smooth and receptive so scores will be low on a course that doesn't really favour any particular type of golfer, despite being short; only Pebble Beach among courses the Tour plays is shorter.
Bubba has won here and should have won twice, Mahan too. Phil's won twice and Leishman once.
But shorter hitters like Streelman, Freddie Jac (hasn't played for a month; injured?) and Streelman have won here too, while Ryan Moore, Toms and Tim Clark probably should have. Very few local-ish boys, though JJ Henry (and Faxon) won here, and Keegan Bradley and his buddy Jon Curran are New Englanders.

8).Sergio finished second last year and is back for more, joined by Chambers Bay "contenders" Grace, Oosthuizen, Smith, Snedeker.
GPB has alerted us that sometime Travelers visitors Hoffman, Dufner and Poulter are joining Senden and Schwartzel on something more lucrative than a busman's holiday in Japan.
And GPB also reminds us that the Open Championship "alternate" list is compiled from the owgr placings of those not otherwise exempt. By my reckoning, and not being sure of the cut-off date for that, Hoffman and Kisner (who are both certain to qualify via the FedEx points list as at June 28th), and Molinari are the first three in that list, followed by Matt Jones, Luke Donald and Tim Clark.

9).There is a tract of land, mainly south-east of Hartford, which bears resemblance to the heathland area of Surrey (etc) that features so many outstanding courses; some hints of that on the front nine (terrain not quality) at The Travelers, but kinda surprising that there isn't a great heathland course in the area. Don't know if friend "Hogie" reads these notes but interested if he has any thoughts on that?

10).Finally the USGA and Fox TV are at it again this week, in Sacramento for the US Senior Open. Montgomerie defends his title.
I saw an interesting quote from one of the political advocates of Chambers Bay:
"Robert Trent Jones Jr (he of one leg longer than the other according to Gary Player!) made this for golf, not for the fans. He cared more about the course than the fan. But that's cool. All the rest of this makes it fan-friendly. So I say, just deal with it."
What a moron.
Well, I'm off to Hartford for Friday's play and everything about it will be fan- and player-friendly. Mike Davis keep away.

super, don't be square. At least there is one institutionalised and legal form of gambling in the US, namely being born: Black, you lose; white, you win.

kwinigolfer wrote:We'll sit at the 15th for a while - not my favourite short par-4 but can be most entertaining!

sirb,
70's for Lowry is a fantastic price. And that likely pays down to 5th or 6th place, right?

Some bookies' sites exclude overseas navigators unless we have accounts, Wlliam Hill for instance. Though I do try and catch their podcast every week, mildly entertaining and insightful for the European Tour events, bl00dy useless for the PGA Tour, often just a regurgitation of Rob Bolton columns.

Hi Kwini
Hope all is well in kwiniland! Just on the above. There's a chrome browser plugin called "hola" that allows you to specify what region you are in. So for example people in Irl can specify US then watch US Netflix and ppl in the US can specify UK and watch BBCi content. This will also work if hitting UK betting sites. It is a peer to peer VPN, some people have raised concerns around security and bandwidth usage, so I would suggest using it on a machine that isn't your primary machine like an old laptop, and turning it off when not using it. Also don't do online banking etc on that machine while hola is on. You might find it useful

Hi B_t_b,
kwiniland all good, been away for 48 hours and just catching up on "stuff".
Lots of misapprehensions and misunderstandings in the last twenty posts!

Appreciate the betting site/info tips Must admit, it's not something that I've pursued, only made the comment about being barred from some sites (which I couldn't really care less about) to explain always using Paddy Power prices as examples!

Spent twelve hours on the grounds of TPC River Highlands, at The Travelers, yesterday. Always lots of fun at a terrific customer experience. Greens were perfect!

Flooding rains expected Saturday night into Sunday though so not sure about Sunday's play. Forecast good for Monday though, and the place drains really well.

Great to see Molinari continuing his excellent play; saw him get an eagle on the short par four and just miss one on a par-5. A good result this week assures his Card for 15/16.

Apparently Russell Knox was ill (gorey details withheld) before his round and after it, resulting in his first Tour w/d. Wish he'd let us know beforehand, fantasy fiascos ensue (in my case anyway!).

Hope all is well in County W.

The Travelers is also a Qualie for The Open. Top four finishers within the leading twelve.

Currently, that would be Harman, Pettersson, Rodgers and Stuard. All change, though, by the end of the day.

kwinigolfer wrote:

Spent twelve hours on the grounds of TPC River Highlands, at The Travelers, yesterday. Always lots of fun at a terrific customer experience. Greens were perfect!

Flooding rains expected Saturday night into Sunday though so not sure about Sunday's play. Forecast good for Monday though, and the place drains really well.

Great to see Molinari continuing his excellent play; saw him get an eagle on the short par four and just miss one on a par-5. A good result this week assures his Card for 15/16.

Nice one Kwini, its always nice to see the Pro's up close, they play a different game, certainly to me anyway... Just thought that tip re Hola would be helpful to you for stuff like BBCi player etc.. Enjoy the rest of the Golf!

kwinigolfer wrote:The Travelers is also a Qualie for The Open. Top four finishers within the leading twelve.

I was looking at what else is left in the way of qualifying. Top 5 in the R2D not already qualified after the BMW, other places up for grabs after French and Scottish Opens, as well as the Greenbrier and John Deere.
Then I had a look at the Final Qualifying Series - these take place on the 30th June and there are a number of notables trying for 3 places at each location. Here is a list of "notables" - at least to me.
Woburn - Goosen, Dougherty, Oleson, Rock, and Monty. Gailes - Vijay Singh, Andrew Oldcorn, Shiv Kapur. Hillside - Tom Lewis Gonzo. Royal Cinque Ports - Chopra, Boudry and Ollie Fisher.
If I was anywhere near them I might have considered going as I expect you could get up close and personal.

I see there is a lot of Painting Americans with a broad brush going on this thread.

Kind of ironic, I would think.

I called them misapprehensions and misunderstandings, GPB. Am sure you would use stronger language.

I see Poulter is doing his best to earn his Japanese corn this week, Schwartzel's bounce-back form continuing too. Can't say the same for Jason Dufner though - Dufner's hit the buffers and Hoffman not much better.


And another big (well, everything's relative) cheque for Gary Boyd might be on its way; hopefully he'll be buying goldwolf a shandy?

GPB wrote:I see there is a lot of Painting Americans with a broad brush going on this thread.

Kind of ironic, I would think.

I wouldn't take it personally GPB, you'd want to hear some of the things super says about Scotland,  and he's Scottish!

There's a subtle game that goes on here that you mightn't be aware of, it's that of wind up merchant or WUM, its a tradition that dates back to the BBC 606 days. Don't take it personally its about getting a rise out of people for comedic affect. Personally I don't think its as bad as internet trolling as its usually a bit more considered.

Generally,  I think people who post on here have a lot more in common than might seem apparent.

kwinigolfer wrote:I called them misapprehensions and misunderstandings, GPB. Am sure you would use stronger language.

Jealousy?  Envy?  Bitterness?

Nah,

Bubba's wheels coming adrift?

Last group finishes in 3 hrs 41 Minutes.

Must not be long walks between greens and tees.

And that last group was a hole behind!

Not much improvement in Sunday's forecast, but the Tour is hoping for the best with the field going off in threesomes, starting #1 and #10.
The course will be soft but may play longer; can't see anyone more than four back winning, perhaps Sergio at five back?, but that still leaves some good players. Current four qualifiers for TOC are Harman, DeLaet, Stroud and (I think) Pettersson.

Well put Be_the_Ball!!

Waaaay to much in common to trip over inane stereotypes that sometime surface.

GPB wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:I called them misapprehensions and misunderstandings, GPB. Am sure you would use stronger language.

Jealousy?  Envy?  Bitterness?

Now who's wumming?

Indeed. Nothing to be jealous or envious of

4th place from Poulter in Japan. Senden 8th, Schwartzel 10th, T30 from Aiken and Charley Hoffman. Missed cut from Dufner, but sure he was well paid.

It pretty much rained all night in Hartford and it hasn't stopped. First tee-times still scheduled for 11.40 a.m., but wouldn't be at all surprised if they slipped well into the afternoon. Good forecast for Monday though . . . . . . .

Things (the weather at least) looking up in Hartford; but how much rain fell in the deluge? Lots of bunkers to drain at the very least. Should be a shoot-out.

Will Monty win his 4th Major!

I must say I have watched plenty of the Senior US Open this week!

Balls in the air in Hartford, and that's a minor miracle.
Cool and damp but probably not raining.

Really hoping Frannie Molinari can continue his run of form.

Casey.................................................................

Unofficial confirmation that DeLaet, Harman, Pettersson and Donald go to TOC.

Only Rory has more wins this decade on the PGA Tour than Bubba.

Nice form by Casey, even if he did not win. Gotta to hand it to Bubba. He knows how to finish on the big tour.

Bubba,
More wins than anyone on the Big Tour in the 2010's except for a refugee from the Little Tour.

Super leaderboard at The Travelers - a better challenge for the best players when there's some "weather" to go with the changes in elevation. Long hitters (Watson, DeLaet) mixing nicely with short hitters such as Harman, Luuuke and Zach.

Ironic that Bubba should win the "Travelers" Championship.

Did he mention how happy was about the gay marriage ruling in his acceptance speech?

Probably too busy blubbing over his bible Mac.

Apart from those securing a ticket for super's pitch and putt (incl Luke Donald), there were other big "winners" this week as well as McGirt, Curran, Molinari and DeLaet all crossed the 500 FedEx point threshhold, and that should be enough to qualify them for The Barclays and a Tour Card for 2015/16; Pettersson has got himself pretty close, probably needs just one more Top 30-ish finish to be safe.

Better form from Luke Donald, but perhaps telling that, just when he really needed to drive in the fairway on #17 and #18, he missed.

Unfortunate for Casey, playing really well but still not the Casey of six years ago. Super season for him, though, just needs a win to make it great.

Just looked tickets for Super's pitch and putt invitational and they are asking £80 for a day plus £15 for parking. Is that not a bit steep?

Way too steep Mac. It's not a great place to watch the golf, and the course serves up dreary tournaments.

I do however have a free 4 day pass

It was £80 for a season pass (5 days) for the Irish open and parking/park&ride was free...as was the wind burn and exposure

I hear the holes at the Irish Open were very short, but the fairways were 350 yards wide

super_realist wrote:I hear the holes at the Irish Open were very short, but the fairways were 350 yards wide

Talk nice about the Irish ladies!!!!

There are many posters on here who have never been fans of Peter Oosterhuis; for others, especially those of us of a certain age, he epitomised the very best of an era of British golf.

Whichever side of the ledger you might be, the following is perhaps a chastening account:

http://www.golfworlddigital.com/gw/06_29_2015#pg16

Confirmation that, following the US Open, Messrs Grace, Lowry and Cameron Smith have accepted Special Temporary Membership of the PGA Tour. They join Danny Willett and Patrick Rodgers.

This is appropriate given some of the recent chat about US gambling.

http://www.weiunderpar.com/post/phil-mickelson-linked-to-money-laundering-gambling-case

Big philly in some big trouble. And this isn't the first p-mick financial irregularity to be investigated.

I don't think that's correct Mac, no indication so far that Phil is under investigation and he certainly hasn't been charged.
Plenty of pieces of the jigsaw but not yet clear what the full picture looks like.

It does say in the article that he wasn't charged. Or are you disputing something else in the article?

Just quibbling with your assertion that "Big philly in some big trouble", or were you thinking of another philly?
Phil certainly needs to circle his financial wagons, no disputing that.

Sorry didn't mean to make it sound like he had been charged. Just meant that being associated with money laundering was "big trouble" enough. He does seem to be flirting with financial laws.

Yup, he's doing everything he can to put a bullseye on his back.

How's Steph's periscope? Is she still PGA Tour persona non grata??

She is still banned from PGAT events. She certainly provides a more interesting take on the pro game compared to GD, golf channel, golf monthly etc.

Do you know of any decent golf podcasts? I occasionally listen to the Lawrence Donegan one but don't know of many others.

Mac,
The only one I listen to is the weekly William Hill audioboom effort; interesting, to me anyway, about the European Tour, in need of 606v2 insight on the PGA Tour.

Six more golfers added to the St.Andrews field via their owgr placings:
F.Molinari
Matt Jones
Tim Clark
Lingmerth
English
Berger

kwinigolfer wrote:There are many posters on here who have never been fans of Peter Oosterhuis; for others, especially those of us of a certain age, he epitomised the very best of an era of British golf.

Whichever side of the ledger you might be, the following is perhaps a chastening account:

http://www.golfworlddigital.com/gw/06_29_2015#pg16

Oddly enough, I've never been a great fan (although I am of "a certain age") but I'd not wish this on anyone. Very sad news indeed.

Open Qualifying underway at Gailes, RCP, Hillside and Woburn.
Goosen among those off to a good start but still early in his first round.
Cumbersome navigation to reach leaderboards on the R&A site.

Kwini - thanks for the piece about Peter Ousterhuis. Hadn't heard that, and hope he does well.
I met him 2 years ago when he was visiting UK and pitched up at Remedy with a couple of pals. Appeared to be a really nice chap. If I had a perception before it would have been a bit standoffish, but just goes to show how difficult it is to assess from a distance. Liked the course so much tried to get on the next day, but there was an event and he couldn't get a slot.
Left everyone who met him with a very positive view.

Open qualifying: I see Monty made it back to take his place at Woburn. Good on him.
Marquess my favourite inland UK course.

Monty will need to produce some magic if he is to be at St Andrews.
Gary Boyd keeping up his recent good form. Currently T1 at his venue, 3 clear of the next player.