Travelers Championship

First, a quick look back at Shinnecock. Wyndham Clark won the U.S. Open for the second time in four years, going wire-to-wire for the first time since Martin Kaymer in 2014 — the ninth player ever to lead a U.S. Open start to finish. He opened with a 64 and then spent the better part of three days scrambling like a madman, getting up-and-down from spots that had no business yielding par. He rolled in 50% of his putts from 20 to 25 feet for the week, a true statistical anomaly. The PGA Tour average is 12%.

The gallery, for the second time in a year at a Long Island venue, became a story as the final round wore on. “GeT iN tHe BuNkEr” seems to be the new holler of choice, which leaves a lot to be desired in the creativity department — I'm more of a Chewbacca noise guy myself. A few unruly fans got the boot, as they probably should have. Clark handled it well and kept his eyes on the prize the whole way, even acknowledging after that some of the hate is deserved from past incidents he's apologized for several times. He (and his PR team) did a good job of setting himself up to get a few reputation points back over the past couple days.

Another element of the crowd debauchery on Sunday had to do with who Clark was paired with. Scheffler had the chance to complete the career Grand Slam on his 30th birthday and on Father's Day — an all-time story, had it happened. He never got closer than three shots and finished T4 at even par. Big top-five guy this year.

Sam Burns found himself in the mix at a major yet again and came up one short, missing a 12-footer at the last he was sure was going in. Had it dropped he would have forced a playoff with Clark. He finished second at −3. Tom Kim took solo third to return to relevance after a couple of years away from the top of leaderboards.

It wasn't the most enthralling U.S. Open in recent memory, partly because Clark held a multiple-shot lead through most of the weekend and carried a six-shot lead into Sunday. The USGA's setup at Shinnecock drew mixed reviews, but they executed the plan they came in with: let the course show its own teeth with minimal manual intervention, keep the greens slick without losing them, and test the field's skill and stamina from tee to green.

A respite from last week

We should see some more birdies this week. The Travelers is the anti-U.S. Open, a breather after one of the most exhausting weeks all year. Where Shinnecock is 7,400 yards of exposed fescue and firm greens that chip away at your sanity over four days, TPC River Highlands is 6,844 yards of tree-lined target golf where the winner has finished in double digits under par every year since 1994. The last three winners here have posted −15, −22, and −23.

This is the eighth and final Signature Event of 2026: a 72-player limited field, no cut, $20 million purse. Scottie Scheffler, the 2024 champion, is the clear favorite. Keegan Bradley defends as a two-time winner and the closest thing this event has to a hometown player. Rory McIlroy is not here — the third Signature Event he's skipped this season.

On a relevant note, the Tour announced just this morning that Signature Events will get the axe after the 2027 season, part of a larger proposed overhaul to the Tour's competitive structure. Starting in 2028 the schedule splits into two tiers based on status: a Championship Series for the top tier — 23–24 events, the four majors, The Players, and a reworked postseason — and a Challenger Series feeding into it, with promotion and relegation between the two. Match play is back in the postseason conversation, and a list of long-ignored markets is under consideration for new dates: Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, and Washington among them. Legendary courses such as Cypress Point, Pine Valley, and Seminole have been name-dropped as possible Tour Championship venues.

Streaming: PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ (featured groups and early coverage from 7:45 AM ET); Peacock simulcasts NBC's weekend coverage.

A dicey closing stretch

TPC River Highlands is one of the shortest courses on the Tour schedule. Originally laid out in 1928 as Middletown Golf Club, later Edgewood Country Club, it was redesigned by Pete Dye and reopened as the TPC of Connecticut in 1984, then renovated again in 1989 by Bobby Weed with PGA Tour players Howard Twitty and Roger Maltbie consulting. What came out is a tight, tree-lined par 70 with only two par 5s — both reachable — and eight holes between 400 and 450 yards, which concentrates the field's approach shots into a narrow band, roughly 100 to 175 yards, and puts the scoring pressure on the par 4s. It is a wedge-and-mid-iron contest.

The course is typically pretty gettable on the front and more defensive at the close. The finishing stretch — 15 through 18 — loops around a four-acre lake, the main reason the soft, scoreable course has still produced plenty of drama in recent years. The drivable par-4 15th (roughly 296 yards) tempts the aggressive line and punishes the half-committed one. The par-3 16th is all carry over water into swirling wind. The 17th candy-canes right around the lake to a green that veterans describe in unfriendly terms. The uphill 18th is where Bradley made his winning birdie last year — and where six climate protesters stormed the green at the 72nd hole in 2024.

The winning score has been 19-under or better in three of the last five years. 2024 played to a 67.63 scoring average (−2.37); 2025, in less benign conditions, to 69.24 (−0.76).

U.S. Open Scorecard

Not great! Shinnecock was as tough on the model as it was the players. Only one of the pre-tournament top five — Scheffler, the model's clear No. 1 — finished inside the actual top five. Jon Rahm (No. 2), Patrick Reed (No. 6), and Si Woo Kim (No. 10) all missed the cut. The winner, Wyndham Clark, sat 16th on the board; he was a wire-to-wire major champion the model rated as a notch below elite.

What keeps the week off the floor is the survival rate and the names underneath. Seven of the model's top ten made the weekend at a course that sent half the field home at +4, and Par+ No. 1 landing T4 is a defensible read even if it isn't a winning one. We'll give it a C−. U.S. Opens are historically high-variance and generally more unpredictable than your average PGA Tour tournament.

This Week's Model Picks

TPC River Highlands is historically more predictable. Scheffler tops the board at +2.92, the largest gap between No. 1 and the field the model has produced in weeks — a course-fit score of 93.1 (best in the field) stacked on the second-most strokes gained at River Highlands over five years and finishes of 1st, T6, and T4 in his last three starts here. The market agrees, pricing him near 18%. There's no edge in the favorite; there rarely is.

The useful reads sit lower. The widest gap between the model and the board belongs to Eric Cole (Par+ #21) — the model has him 21st on form and a top-20 course fit while the market prices him under 1%, the largest distance between the two reads this week. He lands in Under the Radar below. Of the genuine contenders, Si Woo Kim (#7) and Wyndham Clark (#6) sit a touch above their prices on form and fit.

Par+ composite: market pricing (35%) + current form (25%) + course fit (20%) + SG:APP L24 (10%) + bogey avoidance (10%). Market implied probability de-vigged from sportsbook consensus, June 23. Note: Alex Fitzpatrick (Par+ #12) rests on a partial-season sample (39% stat coverage).

Fourteen holes of birdies, then the lake

Aside from TPC Craig Ranch, no course on Tour gives up scoring like this one. Jim Furyk shot 58 here in 2016, the first in PGA Tour history. Patrick Cantlay shot 60 as a UCLA amateur in 2011. Cameron Young added a 59 in 2024, which made River Highlands the first Tour event ever to produce two sub-60 rounds. The winning score has reached double digits under par every year since 1994. By every measure of difficulty, it is one of the softest tests the Tour sets all summer.

And it keeps producing finishes that have nothing to do with how low the number goes. Last year Tommy Fleetwood led by three on Sunday and three-putted the 72nd green; Bradley birdied the same hole from six feet to win by one after Fleetwood gave him the line. Brutal watch. The year before, Scheffler beat Tom Kim in a playoff while six protesters sprayed colored powder across the 18th. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish with that plan. The reason for the testy finishes sits at the back of the property: the closing four holes loop around a four-acre lake, a drivable par 4 into an all-carry par 3 into two slick closers, and the course saves all of its teeth for them. River Highlands hands out birdies for fourteen holes and then brings in some water to make sure the winner deserves it.

A humid New England week with a wet window from Friday morning through Saturday. The consequence isn't survival — it's deeper. Rain softens an already receptive course, holds the greens, and takes away the firm bounce that is one of River Highlands' few remaining defenses. A soaked Saturday means darts into stopping greens, which historically depresses the scoring average and amplifies the birdie-fest. If you want the number to stay reachable, you root for the rain.

Each week, a bird native to the tournament's corner of the country.

Connecticut Warbler  ·  Oporornis agilis

Little fake-out this week, but it's about time we featured a warbler. The Connecticut Warbler is barely a Connecticut bird at all. A man named Alexander Wilson named it in 1812 for the spot where he happened to lay eyes on the first specimen; it breeds in the bogs and aspen of central Canada and only passes through New England for layovers. The visual is olive above and yellow below with a gray hood and a pale eye-ring. These little guys are known to bob their tails with enthusiasm as they pick through dead leaves for insects. In fall they put on fat for one of the longest migrations of any warbler — a route that includes a documented two-day nonstop flight over open Caribbean water to the Antilles, on the way to wintering grounds in the Amazon basin. Remarkable stamina.

Range  Breeds central Canada and the upper Great Lakes; winters in the Amazon basin; an uncommon migrant through the eastern U.S., scarce in Connecticut itself Habitat  Bogs and open deciduous woods near water — poplar, spruce, tamarack, aspen; dense low cover on migration