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Who knows live in equality Was it actually less than selling?
Apparently, Rory McIlroy.
With McIlroy and the PGA Tour heading from Los Angeles to Connecticut for the Travelers Championship last week, it always seemed like there was likely to be a small bit of disappointment. The golf world had just moved on from an exciting national championship at one of the country’s most iconic architectural marvels (the Los Angeles Country Club North course), and now it was time to focus its energy on a course with a lesser-known history, TPC River Heights.
While Travelers has long been one of the most beloved venues on the tour for the frenzied New England hordes it attracts, the course has long been one of the least strategically challenging courses faced by the world’s best players. In the past six years, only one winner has posted a score worse than 17-under, and the early rounds of the event have become synonymous with parades of the mid-60s (and below).
This year, mid-week rains left things unusually easy, even by TPC River Highlands standards. The greens and fairways—traditionally firm, the course’s two best defenses against high scores—were wet and receptive. The breeze never blows. By the time the horn sounded on Thursday, Keegan Bradley’s nine birdie, eight-under 62 wasn’t enough to claim a share of the lead.
On Saturday, Ricky Fowler flirted with golfing immortality before “settling down” for a 60. A day later, Bradley shattered the previous tournament’s 72-hole record, firing his fourth consecutive round of 60s to a three-stroke-per-minute victory. An amazing result to win 23 under.
Of course, par is just a number, and as the Tour will surely argue, what really matters is the excitement of competition among the contenders. But at the same time, a slew of lower scores – 109 of them below standard overall – left seventh-place finisher in the championship, Rory McIlroy, wondering if things were a little off. also easy.
“I don’t particularly like a tournament like this,” McIlroy said in a rare critique. “Unfortunately, technology has passed that course, right? It kind of made it obsolete, especially as soft as it was with the little rain we had.”
As McIlroy alluded to, it was hard not to watch the world’s best players blaze TPC River Highlands for four days without wondering about the distance problem in golf, which has pushed professional players to previously unimaginable driving distances. The USGA’s proposed Back Ball, currently scheduled to take effect in 2026, is intended to help make courses like River Highlands play at the original difficulty range.
As McIlroy looked around the field, which included 44 players who scored 10 points less or better, it was hard not to see the Travelers as anything other than resounding endorsements of that rule.
“Talks go back to, you know, golf ball reduction and things like that, when we come to courses like this, they’re not as challenging as they used to be,” he said.
This was evident on Sunday afternoon at the Travelers, particularly in the wake of two of the toughest tests of the season at the US Open and the Memorial Championship.
As McIlroy looks back on those two weeks, he sees two “schematics” of how the touring venues should be set up. The first, Memorial, is based on it thick Super-tough greens and roughs, tight margins for error. The second, LACC, is broad and devoid of roughness, but requires precision to win birders’ chances.
McIlroy said the LACC setup was his preferred testing technique.
“I think a really good golf course outline doesn’t over roughage and make the fairways narrow,” said McIlroy. “The outline is something like an LACC where you have wide targets, but if you miss it’s a penalty. This is not that kind of golf course. It’s not that kind of planning. She doesn’t have the land to do that.”
Without that kind of strategic thinking or This kind of land, TPC River Highlands was left without any defenses against elite talents. And without any defenses, the old PGA Tour title – live in equality – starts to look like a mandate.
“Unfortunately, when you get soft conditions like this and you have the best players in the world, that’s what happens,” said McIlroy.