{"id":27440,"date":"2026-06-26T00:19:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/27440\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T00:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:19:14","slug":"eric-cole-holds-lead-at-7-under-after-first-round-at-travelers-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/27440\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Cole holds lead at 7-under after first round at Travelers Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

CROMWELL \u2013- Eric Cole<\/a> was early to the top of the leaderboard in Round 1 of the Travelers Championship<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

He took advantage of the soft greens on a comfortable morning at TPC River Highlands<\/a> and avoided mistakes as he followed a 2-under front nine with a 5-under 35 on the back. It was a 63-foot, nine-inch chip shot from just off the 13th green that found the hole for eagle and ultimately served as the difference between Cole and the cluster of stars behind him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good way to start the tournament, for sure,\u201d said Cole, who finished the round at 7-under-par 63 for sole position in the lead. \u201cWe had really good conditions to start the day, limited wind, greens were pretty soft, so there were birdies to be made out there. I felt like I played solid and kept giving myself chances and a few of \u2019em went in, so that was nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some of the best in the world, No. 1 Scottie Scheffler<\/a> included, hadn\u2019t tee\u2019d off yet.<\/p>\n

For the next four hours, the group chasing Cole was deep. But he never got caught.<\/p>\n

Twelve players, Scheffler included, will come into Friday\u2019s second round within two strokes of the lead. Six are tied at 6-under-par 64, and another six find themselves two strokes back at 5-under 65.<\/p>\n

\"KeeganKeegan Bradley watches his ball at the 5th tee during the 2026 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell on Thursday, June 25, 2026. (Aaron Flaum\/Hartford Courant)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve now played a decent amount on Tour and winning is something I want to do. But, yeah, I just am trying to get myself in that spot where have I more opportunities and then hopefully just the more I do that, the more likely it is that I\u2019ll win,\u201d said Cole, who had to withdraw from last year\u2019s event for medical reasons before the final round.<\/p>\n

It will take some good golf to stay in contention this week.<\/p>\n

There were eight eagles recorded on Thursday, up from just three in last year\u2019s first round, and 295 birdies, a significant increase from last year\u2019s 259.<\/p>\n

Dom Amore: A year after withdrawing, a fit Eric Cole tears up the TPC for early Travelers lead<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the scoring is lower it can be harder and harder to play catch up. I feel like when you play a golf course where even par\u2019s going to be the winning score at the end of the week, there\u2019s always those days where somebody figures it out. When you look at the low rounds from last week\u2019s U.S. Open, there\u2019s still a few of \u2019em, or at least one guy seems to figure it out each day, so you feel like you can catch up a little bit easier,\u201d said Scheffler, who shot 4-under-par 31 on the front nine but failed to jump into the lead.<\/p>\n

He finished in the group at 6-under, which includes world No. 4 Matt Fitzpatrick and Nico Echavarria, Kristoffer Reitan, Ben Griffin and Bud Cauley.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes here, you get so far behind you can only shoot so low on some of these golf courses, so it\u2019s important to keep pace,\u201d Scheffler said.<\/p>\n

\"JustinJustin Rose watches his ball at the 5th tee during the 2026 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell on Thursday, June 25, 2026. (Aaron Flaum\/Hartford Courant)<\/p>\n

Justin Rose, who made seven birdies but two bogeys to finish at 5-under 65, is tied for eighth with U.S. President\u2019s Cup captain Brandt Snedeker, Patrick Cantlay, Aaron Rai, Viktor Hovland and Corey Connors. Defending champion Keegan Bradley was in a group at 3-under 67.<\/p>\n

Only 11 players in the 72-man field finished Thursday\u2019s round over par. Jordan Spieth, who won the tournament in 2017, came in at 1-over-par 71, with Cameron Young just behind at 2-over 72.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s round featured an average score of 67.961, which is the lowest-ever in the first round at the Travelers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to do everything well around here. You can certainly miss it in some spots and be okay, it\u2019s one of those where if you\u2019re scoring it well you can kind of overcome some maybe some bad shots here and there,\u201d Hovland said. \u201cBut then there\u2019s also a handful of places where you\u2019re standing over the ball and you know that you have to pull off a great shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Travelers notes: Matt Fitzpatrick gets comfy on the tee; Norwegian soccer fans make a side trip<\/a><\/p>\n

The Travelers is the final PGA Tour Signature Event of the season. It has a $20 million purse with $3.6 million and 700 FedExCup points to the winner. Cole entered the tournament at No. 39 in the FedExCup standings, more than 2,300 points behind Scheffler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CROMWELL \u2013- Eric Cole was early to the top of the leaderboard in Round 1 of the Travelers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[3232,1576,1452,1454,1325,899,1456,827,144,208,1426,9051,1425],"class_list":["post-27440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scottie-scheffler","tag-connecticut-news","tag-cromwell","tag-ct-news","tag-hartford-courant","tag-keegan-bradley","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-pga","tag-pga-tour","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-tpc-river-highlands","tag-travelers","tag-travelers-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}