BlogTravelers Championship Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Let me take a couple of paragraphs on the U.S. Open.  Rarely do I get shocked at anything in golf but this week could be one of them.

Justin Rose winning the U.S. Open is great, nothing shocking about that.  He knows how to play on tough courses, remember three years ago he won down the road at Aronimink another classic old course. What I found shocking is that going back 20 years only two players that were in the top-ten of the rankings, Tiger Woods and Rose have won the Open.  I would of thought it was more.

Nothing shocking about the way Tiger Woods played.  Yes it was his worst finish in U.S. Opens he has made the cut at and his 13 over par score was the highest score in relation to par in his 16 professional starts.  What I find shocking is the fact that Tiger may never win another U.S. Open and going a bit further he may never win another major.  It just seems to becoming harder and harder for him on the weekend.  He has now gone seven majors on not breaking 70 on the weekend, going back to the final round in the 2011 Masters.  Could the pressures of his biological clock getting to him or could stories like this add more pressure on him?

Nothing shocking about Sergio Garcia finishing at 15 over, the course was tough.  But you will find it shocking that Garcia was 16 over on holes 15 and 16 with five shots hit out of bounds and a four putt.  If he would of played the hole in say one over instead of 16 over Garcia would of beaten Justin Rose by a shot.  Yes that is shocking.

But the whole reason for this piece is the shocking fact that Phil Mickelson still hasn’t won the U.S. Open.  Sorry but what are the odds that only one player would beat you in six different U.S. Opens?  To think in 24 rounds over 432 holes  Mickelson could of played just one shot differently, he could of been a winner, but it never has happened.  If you ask Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson there biggest disappointments in golf it would be not winning the PGA Championship.  As for Greg Norman, he beat himself up a dozen different times in the Masters and came ho so close a half a dozen times to get beat by that one player making that one key shot, just look back at how Greg Norman lost to Larry Mize in the 1987 Masters.

We don’t know what the future lies for Mickelson, he should have a few more good years left and the Open does return to Pinehurst next year, the venue that started his runner-up streak going in 1999.  After watching his comments on Sunday you can see it’s a tough thing for him and he really gets chocked up over this.  The only thing, you never know what Phil will do next and you know that he already is thinking about what he has to do next year at Pinehurst.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Travelers Championship:

Key stat for the winner:

The TPC at River Highlands is a different type of TPC course.  Since it was a reconfiguration of a traditional, old style course it still has some of that flavor.  Most of the greens are small, raised or crowned, making it a scrambler’s delight.  The tournament is well supported in the community — as many as 80,000 spectators could be in attendance this week — so the timid need not apply.  Another factor that comes into play is the fact that the tournament has close finishes every year (except of course in 2009 when Kenny Perry won by three).  Since it moved away from Wethersfield in 1983, 20 of the 28 tournaments have been decided by either a shot or a playoff, including in 2010 when Bubba Watson beat Scott Verplank and Corey Pavin in extra holes.  Last year Marc Leishman was a shot better than Charley Hoffman and Bubba Watson.  Here is a chart that shows exactly how close tournaments have been in the 61-year history of the Travelers Championship:

• Tournaments tied after 72 holes: 20
• Tournaments won by one shot: 21
• Tournaments won by two shots: 8
• Tournaments won by three shots: 5
• Tournaments won by four shots or more: 7

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Hitting it far is more important than accuracy because the last ten of 11 champions (Fredrik Jacobson was T46th) have been in the top-13 of the driving distance stat while only six winner have  broken into the top-ten of the accuracy stat just once.  Last year’s winner Marc Leishman was 12th in driving distance and T15th in accuracy.
• Playing the par 4s well is another key. Of the last 11 champions, eight have played those holes in 9-under or better, with Notah Begay III playing it them in 16-under in 2000. Last year Leishman broke the mold as he was only 5-under on the par-4s. </li>
• Now I don’t want to jinx the tournament, but weather in Connecticut should be OK for the weekend but there is a big possibility of showers and thunderstorms on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  But on a whole look for good weather.
• Hitting greens will be at a premium. Just like in a U.S. Open, hitting lots of greens goes a long way in this event.  Normally you would look for the winner to hit globs of greens but that hasn’t been the case the last three years as Bubba Watson in 2010 was T30th in greens hit but T4th in putting, Freddie Jacobson in 2011 was T34th in greens hit but T3rd in putting and last year Marc Leishman was T28th in greens hit and T11th in putting.