The No. 1 Player in the World Defending TPC River Highlands? We’re Here For It

Every time the Travelers Championship rolls around, media members like to take digs at TPC River Highlands and its, let’s just say, difficulty level.

Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim were tied at 22-under before their playoff last year, Keegan Bradley won at 23-under in 2023, and Xander Schauffele took home the hardware in 2022 after shooting 19-under.

So, yeah, it’s not Oakmont, but you can still get in some trouble around this place. Don’t believe me? Let the No. 1 player in the world lay it out for you.

“Golf's funny in that sense,” Scheffler said when asked if River Highlands is too easy, given this tournament’s status as a signature event. “People, when they watch golf, it's not like other sports where you want us to look like y'all when we play golf. It's one of those funny things. You watch the NBA, and you're like, I wish they couldn't dunk. I wish they were scoring less. I wish their shooting percentage was lower on 3-pointers. If you watch tennis, you're like, man, I wish the ball was going slower so they look like me out there playing tennis. It's not like that.”

He added that professional golf is different from amateur golf, and if fans get the opportunity to watch the best in the world hit balls on the range, shots don’t go offline too often.

“I think sometimes, especially in this day and age, people get way too caught up in the winning score being what is a proper test. I think a proper test is good shots being rewarded and bad shots being punished. I think this is one of the best golf courses for that,” he said.

If you’ve never been up to Cromwell, Connecticut, to attend this event, the final stretch is one of the best in golf. It starts with 15, a driveable par-4 with water lurking just left of the green. The 16th is a long par three with water protecting the front of the green, and the 17th is a tricky par-4 with water all the way down the right side of the fairway.

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If that isn’t trouble, I don’t know what is.

“There's opportunity out there, and there's also punishment,” Scheffler continued. “You look at the closing stretch; 15, if you hit a good shot, you've got a birdie opportunity. If you try to bail out right, you're going to be in a bunker short right of the green and have a 40-yard bunker shot, a hard shot. 16, if you hit a good shot, you're going to have a good look at birdie. If you bail out and go long, it's a tough chip down the hill. 17, you hit the fairway, you have a chance to hit in there close to the pin. If you hit it in the left rough, you probably can't get to the green. That's what we look for in golf courses, in terms of you want good shots to be rewarded and bad shots to be punished. It's as simple as that.”

Scheffler finished his defense of the golf course by saying that these guys don’t care if the winning score is 22-under. All they want to see is good shots get rewarded and bad shots get punished.

That’s something we’ll see all week long at the Travelers.

Shockingly, Scheffler is the heavy betting favorite here this week as the defending champ, sitting at 3/1 (+300). All he was missing at Oakmont was the flat-stick—he still finished T-7—so if he gets the putter going, it could get late pretty early for the rest of the field.