2023 Travelers Championship Betting Odds & Tee Times For Patrick Cantlay, Tommy Fleetwood & More
PGA DFS Coverage for the Travelers Championship
The PGA Tour leaves the 123rd U.S. Open in Los Angeles, California and travels nearly 3,000 miles west to Hartford, Connecticut for this week’s Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands. This course has played host to this PGA Tour stop every year since 1984. It is consistently voted as one of the best tournaments from their services, to the hospitality, to the attendance and quality of the course. Let’s get into detail as to why this is a great event on the PGA Tour schedule.
The Field: Travelers Championship
Typically the tournament after a major championship has a weak field because guys take the week off to rest and recover. It’s a different ballgame in 2023 with these designated events on the PGA Tour. We’ve got a terrific field with the Top 8 players in the world all in attendance this weekend in Connecticut. We will see 6 former Travelers champions teeing it up this weekend including defending champ Xander Schauffele and 2021 champ Harris English. Sahith Theegala will be out to avenge last year’s performance when he let his first PGA Tour victory slip through his fingers when he double bogeyed the 72nd hole. It should be a great week of competition with top tier players.
The Course: TPC River Highlands
This course is the fourth shortest course on the regular PGA Tour schedule. It stretches out just 6,841 yards playing as a Par 70. This course was designed by Pete Dye who knows how to mess with players' mentality. He has been known for giving players lots of risk and reward decisions to make throughout their round. The course got a face-lift a few years ago when it removed 50 bunkers but upgraded the remaining 69. There were trees removed, the fairways were narrowed and the greens were completely remade. When you look over the course history, lots of course managers and shorter hitters have had success like Harris English, Chez Reavie, Jordan Spieth and Russell Knox have all won in the last 10 years.
Weather: Hartford, Connecticut
It looks like it’s going to be a wet weekend in Connecticut for the Travelers. It’ll start nice on Thursday with temperatures in the upper 70s but by Friday afternoon, the showers begin. Those showers will turn into thunderstorms when the weekend rolls around which could delay this tournament multiple times. The one positive at this point is the forecast says it’s a 50/50 chance we will see all that rain. Keep your eye on the forecast as we get closer to the start of the tournament..
Betting Odds (via DraftKings): Travelers Championship
Here are a few of the early outright winner bets I like for this weekend …
Patrick Cantlay +1000
Tommy Fleetwood +2200
Russell Henley +3500
Harris English +4500
Shane Lowry +5500
Austin Eckroat +7500
Eric Cole +13000
Tom Hoge +18000
How To Watch the Travelers Championship
It will be very simple to follow the Travelers Championship this weekend. Thursday and Friday coverage will be exclusively on Golf Channel from 3-6pm ET. The weekend coverage will start on Golf Channel from 1-3pm ET and then shift to CBS from 3-6pm ET.
Coverage from Fantasy Alarm
The PGA DFS Playbook will be available on FantasyAlarm.com Wednesday morning at 10am ET. We will also have PGA DFS example lineups available beginning at 2:30pm ET. You can get help with your DFS lineup construction with our usual tools like our PGA DFS Lineup Generator and a run of PGA DFS projections. Don’t forget about our Value Finder tool! That’s available as well!
I look forward to getting more in-depth in my PGA DFS Playbook. As always, I wish you nothing but the best of luck in your games.
Player News
Justin Thomas arrived at the Travelers Championship amidst a bit of a slump but left with 25 birdies to manage a T9 finish, his first top 10 since March.
Thomas is known for his stellar rate of big finishes over the course of his career but that changed recently with six straight finishes landing outside of the top 10. A cold putter has been the culprit for much of the downturn but he managed to fight through the flat-stick woes this week. Thomas lost 1.9 strokes putting at TPC River Highlands but ranked 3rd in strokes gained tee-to-green. It was a promising result to rebuild some confidence but he still has some work to do in the putting department. Despite the nice finish this week, Thomas is just 66th in the FedExCup race.
Brian Harman tossed together a 6-under 64 on Sunday at the Travelers Championship, posting a piece of second place on the final leaderboard (-20).
Harman entered the week with just one top 25 in his last 14 stroke-play events. It's been a slump for the straight shooter but TPC River Highlands was the perfect cure. The Georgia Bulldog gained 4.4 strokes on approach, 3.5 strokes around-the-green, and 4.9 strokes putting. All three ranked 13th or better for the week. This was far from his first taste of success at the course, going in the books as his sixth career top 10 at TPC River Highlands.
Chez Reavie started the day just one shot off the pace but stumbled with a 1-over 71 to drop back to a share of fourth place on the final leaderboard.
Reavie and overnight leader Keegan Bradley were in a tier of their own to begin the day. Reavie dropped a rung with seven pars and two bogeys before the turn. His driver remained steady (12-of-14 fairways) but lost strokes in each of the other three categories of strokes gained today. It was a day to forget but a week to remember for Reavie who still managed a T4 finish, vaulting him from 114th to 95th in the FedExCup race.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler steadied a 5-under 65 on Sunday at the Travelers Championship, ending the week on 19-under 261, good for a slice of fourth place.
The Texan piled up 21 birdies and a pair of eagles this week at TPC River Highlands. He ended the week ranked second in strokes gained tee-to-green (+11.08). He's now gained at least 10.6 strokes in that department in six straight events. Scheffler carded three sub-66 rounds this week but a two-birdie 70 on Friday is what held him back from truly contending. The World No. 1 now has six straight top-5 finishes and you have to go back to October to find the last time he finished worse than 12th. It's safe to say he's been the most consistent golfer on the planet over the last nine months.
Rory McIlroy raced out of the gate on Sunday at the Travelers Championship before slowing his pace to record a 6-under 64, ending his week in a share of seventh place (18-under 262).
McIlroy circled birdies on five of the first seven holes today. He couldn't maintain that pace but still bettered the field average by more than three shots today. McIlroy tossed together four sub-69 rounds this week at TPC River Highlands but didn't even sniff contention over the weekend. "I don't particularly like when a tournament is like this. Unfortunately technology has passed this course by, right? It sort of has made it obsolete, especially as soft as it has been with a little bit of rain that we had." The Northern Irishman now has five straight top-10 finishes and has his game trending back toward the winner's circle just in time for the season's final major and the FedExCup Playoffs.
Patrick Cantlay gave the leader a small scare down the stretch was swallowed two late bogeys to finish on 19-under this week at the Travelers Championship, four shots off the winning tally of Keegan Bradley.
Cantlay was slow out of the gate with eight pars and a birdie before the turn. He applied some pressure with four birdies on the next six holes, all while Keegan Bradley was starting to leak with three straight bogeys. That shrunk the lead to just three shots be Cantlay stumbled home with two bogeys and a par. "I thought I struck the ball very solid all day. Played smart. Not the finish I wanted obviously, but my game is in a good spot and a lot of big tournaments left this summer." The UCLA alum carded four sub-69 rounds this week and led the field in strokes gained tee-to-green. Cantlay now has six straight top 15s at TPC River Highlands. He collected two victories last season but still searching for his first win of the 2022-23 campaign.