The Travelers Championship will be held this week at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell Connecticut. Coming on the heels of the U.S. Open it does not draw the strongest field on the PGA Tour, but there are enough stars on hand to make it an interesting event.
The Travelers Championship has been held since 1952 and has a rich history. Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Ken Venturi, Lee Trevino, Paul Azinger, Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson are all former winners of this tournament.
At 6,800 yards TPC River Highlands is a short course, but at par-70 will not be a push over for the field.
Here are five names to watch this weekend to see how they can decompress after a difficult week at Merion Golf Club.
U.S. Open champion, Justin Rose will start on the No. 1 tee at 12:50 PM ET on Thursday. He is grouped with two players that did not make the cut at Merion Golf Club last week, Zach Johnson and Keegan Bradley.
After his whirlwind media tour of New York, will Rose be able to refocus and produce the quality of golf that he displayed last week?
Hunter Mahan collected his first PGA Tour win at this event in 2007. He is coming off a very good week at the U.S. Open. He was in contention on the final day, but late bogeys forced him to settle for a T-4 finish.
Bubba Watson is also a past champion at the Travelers. He has not had a Bubba-like year thus far in 2013. He has only had two top-10 finishes this year and is No. 57 in the FedEx Cup standings.
This may be a good week for Bubba to turn his year around.
Lee Westwood still hasn’t won a major championship. He played well at the U.S. Open posting rounds of 70-77-69-73 to finish T-15 on an extremely difficult Merion Golf Club. TPC River Highlands will be much easier test for a tremendous ball-striker like Westwood.
Mike Weir has struggled for the past few years to regain the form that allowed him to win the 2003 Masters. Injuries and longer golf courses have hampered his ability to get back to the winners circle.
Weir had a good week at Merion and finished T-28. He has been working extremely hard with his instructors and this would be a good week for him to pick up his ninth PGA Tour win.