Golf-Travelers Notes: TPC a Relief

The numbers put up this week at the Travelers Championship were eye-popping.

Kenny Perry’s 22-under not only set a tournament record, but was one of the best scores in PGA Tour history and his four-day total of 258 was the fourth-best score in tour history.

Of the 72 finishers on Sunday, only Vaughn Taylor finished the tournament over par (3-over). Jerry Kelly and Marc Leishman finished at even par, with the others all in red numbers. The top 25 finishers were all double-digits under par.

There has been talk this week that the TPC River Highlands isn’t long enough to challenge today’s golfers. Add in the torrential rains that softened up the course and it was a birdie paradise in Cromwell. That’s fine with runner-up David Toms, who finished at 19-under in a tie with Paul Goydos.

“I would leave it,” Toms said when asked if the course should be altered. “If you look at years past when it got firm and fast with a breeze, the scores weren’t as low as they were this week. I love to play here, and I think that’s why they get a good field. Everybody likes to play here. Bombers like to play it, the short-hitters like to play it. I think it’s a golf course that anyone can do well on.”

Toms didn’t make the cut at the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black and his second-round 76 left him in a bad place when he arrived in Cromwell last Wednesday.

That made this week at the TPC River Highlands a kind of mental therapy for the field. Toms had his third second-place finish of the year and despite his low score, he felt that the course played fair. The sentiments were echoed by many of the players, some of whom are unable to compete at places like Bethpage Black.

“Last week at the U.S. Open, that just beat me up,” Toms said. “I had no chance to win that golf tournament, and if you looked at the leaderboard at the end, you could see the guys who were up there (were all long hitters). That’s not going to happen at this tournament. You might have guys who bomb it out there like Kenny does, but you have a lot of other guys that have a chance.”

While the low scores certainly will cause some to scoff, many of the golfers said that the weather conditions had more to do with the scoring than the layout. The water-logged course was soft in the fairways and slow on the greens. That had a consequence for golfers who hit the fairway.

Ryan Moore, who finished fourth at 17-under, likes the way it played. Not every course on tour has to be a crucible.

“It’s a position golf course,” Moore said. “It’s really a putting battle, especially when it’s soft like this.

“Everybody’s going to be shooting good golf scores and shooting 64 like I did today and barely move. That’s tough, knowing you gotta shoot a 61 or 62 to make any big jump.”