Tuesday 23 June 2015 15:35, UK
There’s a quality feel to the Travelers Championship as golf on the PGA Tour returns to the style with which we – and the players – have grown familiar.
TPC River Highlands is an old-fashioned, straightforward par-70 course which rewards good shots and penalises bad ones, so to those who found Chambers Bay and its unique test to be unfair or unpleasant this will be a welcome change.
Bubba Watson certainly didn’t take to the challenge last week and the 2010 Travelers champion heads the betting from in-form Brandt Snedeker and the prolific Patrick Reed, but if forced to take one from the top of the market I’d lean towards Sergio Garcia at a slightly bigger price.
Garcia has recently started playing the way he did for much of 2014 with a share of second in THE PLAYERS his best effort of the season. He filled the same slot in this tournament a year ago and, having played well to finish 18th in Washington, looks likely to go well.
However, there are better bets to be had starting with Zach Johnson, whose form at the course is patchy but does include a round of 63 and a best of third place overall.
Johnson never featured at Chambers Bay, a course really not made for him, but prior to it had shown notable improvement with the putter to take fifth in the Byron Nelson. It’s been a solid season for this 11-time PGA Tour winner with a top-10 finish at Augusta probably the highlight, and in this company he deserves to be much shorter in the betting.
Graham DeLaet was third here two years ago and arrives on the back of a pair of top-30 finishes, so at around 66/1 he’s worth a bet.
DeLaet will relish being back up in Connecticut at one of his favourite courses on the PGA Tour and this is an event which has been kind to those seeking their first title – there aren’t many more talented maidens than him. Look through the roll-of-honour and you’ll also see some of the best ball-strikers around including Hunter Mahan, whose game is very similar to DeLaet’s, and the in-form Canadian should go well.
With victories for Ken Duke in 2013 and Kevin Streelman last year coming from out of the blue, complete your staking plan by taking a collection of outsiders at massive odds.
Pick of them is John Peterson, who has long looked capable of competing at this level and arrives feeling full of beans having recovered from a wrist injury that’s been bothering him for months.
Ohio’s Jim Herman finished fourth in the Zurich Classic a couple of months ago and has held his form well enough to be of interest given how well he strikes the ball, while Chez Reavie has gone well here in the past and returned to form with a top-20 in Memphis a fortnight ago. Both look each-way value in an event where speculative bets are the order of the day.
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