{"id":29123,"date":"2026-06-29T07:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T07:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/29123\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T07:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T07:35:23","slug":"2026-travelers-grades-scottie-scheffler-viktor-hovland-head-to-playoff-atop-leaderboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/29123\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Travelers grades: Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland head to playoff atop leaderboard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n        This page may contain affiliate links. If you click and sign up, make a deposit, or place a wager, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.\n    <\/p>\n<p>Four days and 72 holes were not enough for the 2026 Travelers Championship. Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland will return to TPC River Highlands on Monday at 9 a.m. ET to compete in a playoff, completing the fourth round of the final signature event of the year with each aiming to capture the winner&#8217;s share of the last $20 million purse until the FedEx Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>As they did to wrap up their Sundays, Scheffler and Hovland will play the par-4 18th on Monday until a winner is decided. Both players finished regulation at 21 under, one clear of Collin Morikawa.<\/p>\n<p>Though Hovland entered Sunday atop the leaderboard, Scheffler immediately grabbed a share of the lead on the par-4 1st when Hovland put a bogey on his scorecard. The two tossed the lead back and forth like a game of hot potato throughout the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At one point on the front nine, there was a stretch of five straight holes where the lead swung between the two, who played together in the final pairing. After another two-shot exchange among the final duo on No. 10, Scheffler commanded a two-stroke lead as the likes of Morikawa, Wyndham Clark and Matt Fitzpatrick all made their moves.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, it was Morikawa who posted the clubhouse lead at 20 under as the two-time major champion waited for someone to better his mark. This wait included an 83-minute weather delay, which Hovland exited firing on all cylinders. Rattling in birdies on Nos. 14-15, the Norwegian pulled even with the world No. 1, who had to save pars on those same holes, with three holes to play.<\/p>\n<p>After exchanging a couple of pars, Scheffler and Hovland each had makable birdie puts on the 18th, despite both coming from long distances. While Scheffler&#8217;s effort did not come close, leaving an 8.5-foot par putt to force the playoff, Hovland flirted with finding the bottom of the cup but ultimately fell short.<\/p>\n<p>Scheffler let out a burst of emotion upon draining his putt as he had just missed a birdie look to take the lead from a similar distance on the previous hole and secured a date with Hovland for Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>They will compete for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/golf\/news\/travelers-championship-2026-prize-money-purse-payouts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">$3.6 million winner&#8217;s share<\/a> Monday morning, but for everyone else in the field, their work is complete in Cromwell, Connecticut. Let&#8217;s hand out some grades based on their performances over the last 72 holes.<\/p>\n<p>2026 Travelers Championship leaderboard, grades<\/p>\n<p>3. Collin Morikawa (-20): Started the day nine strokes back of Hovland&#8217;s lead and went straight to work to chip into it. The two-time major champion threw two darts out of the gates and then let the putter take over. Morikawa converted birdie looks from 30 feet, 7 feet, 31 feet, 15 feet, 17 feet and 9 feet on the 72nd hole to tie his personal career low on the PGA Tour with a 9-under 61. On the day, he made 135 feet worth of putts, cementing his return from the back injury that has lingered ever since The Players Championship. Grade: A<\/p>\n<p>T5. Wyndham Clark (-18): May have even surprised himself with his play, considering the combination of celebrations and media obligations following last week&#8217;s triumph. Clark looked to become the first player since Ernie Els in 1997 to win the week following a win at the U.S. Open, but he ultimately fell short. He once again made almost every putt he looked at as he ranked first in strokes gained putting and second in terms of scrambling but ran out of steam by week&#8217;s end.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[I&#8217;m operating on] fumes, fumes. Just one more day,&#8221; Clark said on Saturday. &#8220;When I was on Korn Ferry, I played nine weeks in a row. I&#8217;ve had years where I&#8217;ve had to play six or seven in a row. So it&#8217;s four in a row. Obviously, it&#8217;s different when you are in contention most of the weeks, but I&#8217;m looking forward to next week. I&#8217;m not going to touch a club. So that&#8217;s all I&#8217;m fantasizing about right now.&#8221; Grade: A-<\/p>\n<p>T15. Keegan Bradley (-14): The two-time tournament champion was in need of a solid week, and he delivered just that. Bradley ranked No. 76 in the FedEx Cup standings and has inched his way inside the top 70 as his playing schedule pushes him across the pond for a couple of tournaments in which he has never fared too well. He will need to maintain this form amid a year riddled with memories of the Ryder Cup and still no top-10 finishes. Bradley looked much more like himself from tee to green across four days at TPC River Highlands. Grade: B-<\/p>\n<p>T66. Jordan Spieth (E): A week that started with speculation about which putter he would put in the bag ended with his name near the bottom of the leaderboard. Spieth made just about 200 feet worth of putts (last in the field) as his ball striking followed suit in terms of quality, ranking 70th in the 72-man field. He is now without a top 10 finish in more than a calendar year, with his last such result coming at the 2025 Memorial Tournament. Spieth plans to tee it up at the John Deere Classic, where consistency throughout the bag throughout an entire tournament has to be the top of his agenda. Grade: F<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This page may contain affiliate links. If you click and sign up, make a deposit, or place a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[994,44,205,144,5499,1890,995,206,208,10069,2035],"class_list":["post-29123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-coverage","tag-golf","tag-leaderboard","tag-pga-tour","tag-playoff","tag-round-4","tag-schedule","tag-scores","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-travelers-championship-2026","tag-viktor-hovland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29123","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=29123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}