The PGA Tour continues its reboot of the season. The party this week is going to be at the TPC River Highlands for the 2020 Travelers Championship. Last year, Chez Reavie won the event. This year, who will it be? We have listed some of the favorites, sleepers, and long shots to keep a close eye on for this upcoming tournament down in Connecticut.
McIlroy, the world’s no. 1 player, has been slow to heat up since the reboot of the current PGA Tour season. He finished with a T32 at the Charles Schwab Challenge then followed that up with an even worse T41 at the RBC Heritage. But McIlroy is McIlroy, and it could just be a matter of time before he inevitably captures his elite form. That could come this week at the TPC River Highlands, where he has a couple of top 20s and a 67.88 scoring average in two appearances there. On the season, McIlroy has two top 3s and a win (at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions) in eight starts. He’s made the cut in all of those starts.
DeChambeau ha yet to win this season, but he’s still making loud noises. He’s cracked the top 10 in all of his last five PGA Tour starts, including a T3 at the Charles Schwab Challenge and a T8 at the RBC Heritage. Currently ranked 11th in the world, DeChambeau has six top 10s in nine starts. Last year, he finished with a T8 at the 2019 Travelers Championship.
Simpson bettors struck gold over the weekend, as the North Carolina native scored his second win of the season by topping the field at the RBC Heritage. It was as good as great of a comeback as he could have from a missed cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Simpson can continue his recent surge this week at the Travelers Championship, wherein he’s finished inside the top 15 in each of the last three editions of the tournament.
Hovland fired a 65 in the first round of the RBC Heritage but could not sustain his form on his way to finishing with a T21. Still, that was an improvement from his T23 at the Charles Schwab Challenge and a T42 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. In 11 starts this season, Hovland has two top 10s (including his win at the Puerto Rican Open) and four top 25s.
Palmer has a penchant for churning out solid performances from time to time this season, and he’s mostly produced respectable results whenever he’s made the cut. He has three top 10s (including a T8 at the RBC Heritage), seven top 25s, and made the cut nine times in 11 starts.
Glover missed the cut two times in a row at the Honda Classic and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but since then, he’s prevented the same fate at the last two tournaments he played at. He had a T23 at the Charles Schwab Challenge and a T21 at the RBC Heritage. Those weren’t much to write home about, but that also means Glover is headed in the right direction.
Johnson missed the cut at the RBC Heritage, his fifth in 12 starts. His best finish so far this season is a T14 at the Sanderson Farms Championship back in T14. Johnson has 12 career PGA Tour victories.
Writer’s Prediction
Webb Simpson wins the 2020 Travelers Championship.
