{"id":28574,"date":"2026-06-28T04:38:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T04:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/28574\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T04:38:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T04:38:57","slug":"dom-amore-low-scores-high-pressure-and-drama-go-hand-in-hand-at-the-travelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/28574\/","title":{"rendered":"Dom Amore: Low scores, high pressure and drama go hand in hand at The Travelers"},"content":{"rendered":"

CROMWELL \u2014 Golf is a relatively simple<\/a> game at it\u2019s core. Get the ball from the tee to the hole in as few strokes as possible, that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n

The reactions, though, can be complicated.<\/a> Hundreds of thousands of fans flock to the Travelers Championship each year, cluster around the green, and when you hear the crowd noise swell from a half a mile away you know a ball has dropped into a hole, or another type of great shot has been made. Isn\u2019t that what they\u2019ve come to see?<\/p>\n

And yet, when the scores get low, the criticism elevates, with speculation the course is too easy for the professionals, especially of the highest caliber that come to Cromwell. It happened here in 2023, when Keegan Bradley won the Travelers with a record 23-under par, and Rory McIlroy called the TPC River Highlands<\/a> \u201cobsolete.\u201d A few changes were made to adjust to the stronger field of a Signature Event before the 2024.<\/p>\n

The other day, when the top golfer on earth, Scottie Scheffler,<\/a> scorched the course with a 60, a fan with a little buzz going nudged me on my way out to the parking lot. \u201cTen-under par? Are you kidding me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dom Amore: Scottie Scheffler is so consistently good, it\u2019s easy to take greatness for granted<\/a><\/p>\n

Was he talking about Scheffler\u2019s greatness? Or was he referring to the course? We know when Scheffler missed a birdie putt on 18, he didn\u2019t seem too broken up about it. After all, a 59 wouldn\u2019t even have been the course record. Jim Furyk\u2019s Tour-record 58 happened on this very par-70 course in 2016. Patrick Cantlay, now a Tour veteran, shot 60 here as an amateur in 2011.<\/p>\n

For me, the question is, why would anyone consider low scores such a bad thing? It\u2019s made for some entertaining golf at the TPC River Highlands.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to understand the context,\u201d Travelers tournament director Nathan Grube<\/a> said. \u201cGolf is the only sport that is so affected by the weather and environment. When you look at a golf course, the weather has a massive impact in how the tournament goes. This golf course, when it\u2019s dry and the greens are fast, it will compete with any course in the country. I think our average running score is about 14-under over the last 20 years. It\u2019s not the lowest score, it\u2019s rare that we have been in the high teens or low 20s (under par), ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ScottieScottie Scheffler, left, and Viktor Hovland walk across the 14th hole during the third round of the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands on June 27, 2026. (Jordan Bank\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The low scores Thursday and Friday put Bradley\u2019s tournament record in jeopardy, but in context and on cue, as Grube expected, the course began to play much differently Saturday. Greens were dry and fast for the morning groups, then when the leaders got started in the afternoon, light rain arrived. Scheffler made only one birdie on the front nine, Viktor Hovland made three on the first four holes to tie him at 17-under, then they started trading pars, and both bogeyed 10. Scheffler reached 20-under, but two-putted and bogeyed 18 as Hovland birdied to complete a third-round 64 to take a 1-stroke lead into Sunday\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n

Scheffler, who won the Travelers with 22-under par in 2024, began play Saturday at 16-under, the lowest score ever through 36 holes, but leading Hovland by only two with a dozen others in striking distance.\u00a0 Conditions Friday just were ideal, with rain softening the greens during the week and Thursday overnight. The field, which included 49 of\u00a0 the top 50 golfers on the PGA Tour \u2014 McIlroy opted out \u2014 made 339 birdies in the second round, 295 in the first round. During the final round in 2024, the average round was 67.099, and this year\u2019s second round nearly matched it, 67.112.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really do enjoy kind of harder tests and sometimes the battle is fun as well,\u201d Scheffler said this week. \u201cThis golf course I think is interesting in a sense of you hit some different clubs off the tee, there\u2019s some strategy involved, but you got to show up and make birdies. When you look at the closing stretch on this golf course as well, especially if you\u2019re in contention on Sunday, you\u2019re not going to be able to just limp in, you got to go out there and you got to make birdies and hit some really, really great shots in order to win this tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you always seem to have a really good finishes here and I think that\u2019s the nature of the closing stretch and how difficult it is to close on this course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dom Amore: Wyndham Clark won the U.S. Open, at the Travelers he\u2019s hoping to start winning fans again<\/a><\/p>\n

To Scheffler\u2019s point, the battle is the thing here. The golfers are competing with each other, not against the course, so the opportunities to make birdies brings a different challenge, the pressure to make them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys in front of you typically are making birdies and so the leaderboard also will get really bunched just by the nature of how the golf course is,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cSo playing with the lead here I think is difficult. The guys in front of you can put a lot of pressure on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The birdie bar has been so high here, it has made for thrilling finishes at the Travelers, which also keeps the fans flocking to the 18th green on Sundays, and keeps the TV viewers tuned in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun when the conditions are this soft and a guy can do it, it\u2019s great, it\u2019s super fun,\u201d Grube said,<\/a> \u201cbut there are a lot of reasons you could see lower scores. Listen, everybody is playing the same course.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some years, the TPC\u2019s reputation has suffered because it follows on the heels of the U.S. Open, which rotates among the hardest courses and conditions in America, but Grube is quick to recall 2017, when Brooks Koepka won the the U.S. Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin with 16-under par and, a week later, Jordan Spieth took The Travelers at 12-under, and needed his famous miracle shot to get there. Many of the metrics pro golfers use in a safer approach to a round or a tournament have to be thrown out when a course plays the way River Highlands played Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n

\"CROMWELL,Patrick Cantlay plays a shot from the 18th tee during the third round of the Travelers Championship on June 27, 2026. (Andrew Redington\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt puts a weird kind of pressure on guys,\u201d Grube said. \u201cYou know you have to play super aggressive or you\u2019re going to get lapped. So the guys play differently. Where usually, it\u2019s \u2018I play super conservative, play statistically,\u2019 you have to play a different game and that\u2019s what the fans get to see. \u2018This is\u00a0 the aggressive version of me, this is me chasing down a lead like Sunday, but I have to play that way the whole four days.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt puts these\u00a0 guys in a different kind of space and it\u2019s fun to see, because these guys have different gears.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Travelers\u2019 $20 million purse, with more than $3 million going to the winner, keeps the top golfers coming back so when it takes a shootout to win, so be it. But as Saturday\u2019s play showed, things have a way of evening out, regressing to the mean. Reigning U.S. Open champ Wyndham Clark called the last four holes at River Highlands \u201cone of the best finishes in golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou play the U.S. Open, and pars feel like birdies,\u201d said Clark, 13-under through three rounds. \u201cThen you come out here, and you know, pars feel like almost bogeys. You just have to kind of change it in your head, but it\u2019s nice. I think a lot of us prefer to play where you are making birdies rather than struggling to make pars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CROMWELL \u2014 Golf is a relatively simple game at it\u2019s core. Get the ball from the tee to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[1453,10029,1454,1325,899,1456,9349,144,208,1425,424],"class_list":["post-28574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scottie-scheffler","tag-connecticut","tag-ctnews","tag-hartford-courant","tag-keegan-bradley","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-nathan-grube","tag-pga-tour","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-travelers-championship","tag-wyndham-clark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28574","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=28574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}