What a difference a week makes. The big guns of professional golf recently completed one of the more rigorous U.S. Opens in recent memory, a suffer-fest in which +15000 surprise champion J.J. Spaun was the only player to finish in red numbers. And now the PGA Tour heads to the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands, a target-rich environment where the past two winners have each gone lower than 20 under par.
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Clearly, we’re not in Oakmont anymore. And perhaps no one is happier to be in Cromwell, Conn., than Scottie Scheffler (+280 at FanDuel), the event’s defending champion who found his game far too late to challenge for the trophy in the U.S. Open last week.
PGA Tour Travelers Championship Odds
| Golfer | Odds |
|---|---|
| Scottie Scheffler | +300 |
| Rory McIlroy | +1200 |
| Xander Schauffele | +1600 |
| Collin Morikawa | +1800 |
| Patrick Cantlay | +2200 |
| Ludvig Aberg | +2500 |
| Justin Thomas | +3000 |
| Viktor Hovland | +3300 |
| Sepp Straka | +3500 |
| Tommy Fleetwood | +3500 |
| Robert MacIntyre | +4000 |
| Sam Burns | +4000 |
| Keegan Bradley | +4000 |
| Russell Henley | +4500 |
| Shane Lowry | +5000 |
| Cameron Young | +5000 |
| Daniel Berger | +5000 |
| Jordan Spieth | +5500 |
| J.J. Spaun | +5500 |
| Ben Griffin | +5500 |
| Maverick McNealy | +5500 |
Odds as of June 18 at FanDuel
The final Signature Event of this PGA Tour season boasts a loaded field that includes the top 12 players in the world, with No. 2 odds choice Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and newly minted national champion Spaun among them.
Scheffler for all his scuffling over the first three days at Oakmont still managed to finish T7, and hasn’t placed worse than T8 over an eight-tournament stretch which dates back to the Houston Open in the final week of March. The world No. 1 has won three times over that span, including in the most recent PGA Tour Signature Event at The Memorial.
PGA Tour Travelers Championship Picks
Scottie Scheffler to Win (+300) at FanDuel
Scheffler can be a maddening wager—he shows long stretches of complete dominance, yet is apt to revert to mere moral status on really difficult major championship layouts like Oakmont, Pinehurst and Royal Liverpool.
His track record at the Travelers, though, is undeniable; Scheffler has been first and T4 in his last two starts in Cromwell, and has been in the 60s in 12 of his past 14 rounds on the par-70 layout. Nothing is guaranteed in golf, of course, but he’s a huge odds favorite this week for a reason.
Xander Schauffele Top-5 Finish +240 at FanDuel
Schauffele is looking more like his old self, with top-20s in two of his past three Signature Event starts preceding a T12 at the U.S. Open last week. He’s been top 20 in four consecutive appearances at the Travelers, a stretch that includes a victory in 2022.
Only two current PGA Tour members—McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay—have been better to par over the past five years at TPC River Highlands than Schauffele, whose average round score over that span is 66.19 according to GolfStats.
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Shane Lowry Top-10 Finish (+280) at FanDuel
The Irishman has been a complete bust in the majors this season, missing the cut in the past two and finishing well back in the pack at Augusta. But he’s been really good almost everywhere else, particularly in Signature Events—solo second at Pebble, seventh at the Arnold Palmer, T18 at Hilton Head and T2 at the Truist in Philadelphia. Lowry finished T9 last season in the Travelers, and has carded 10 straight rounds in the 60s at TPC River Highlands.
PGA Tour Travelers Championship Betting Tips
So, the Rory question. He’s historically been very good in the Travelers, never finishing outside the top 20 in five previous starts. His career average finish of 13.2 in the event is better than any other active player with more than one start. But he was also historically great in the U.S. Open, and we know what happened there. And in the Canadian Open—ditto. And at Quail Hollow, where he went MIA in the PGA Championship.
McIlroy is good enough in the Travelers that sportsbooks have installed him as the No. 2 odds favorite behind Scheffler—though his play of late questions whether he deserves that position. The confiscated driver issue from the PGA is so in his head, he brought it up again when addressing the media last week in Oakmont. Can Rory go out and shoot 25-under to win this week? Of course. But the past month has given us one bad sign after another about McIlroy’s headspace, and it’s clearly affecting his play.
Who else could contend this week in Cromwell? Cantlay has been top-five in each of his last two Travelers starts, but has finished in the single-digits just once since February. Cameron Young shot a 59 (aided by lift, clean and place in muddy conditions) en route to a T9 at River Highlands last season, and has been T4 in each of his last two starts—including the U.S. Open last week. As for Spaun, he’s missed the cut in the Travelers in three of the past four years. Add in the post-U.S. Open whirlwind, and back-to-back triumphs would seem unlikely at best.
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