The final Signature Event of the year is upon us as players make the short journey from New York to Connecticut for the Travelers Championship.
Played at TPC River Highlands, the Travelers Championship is very much a test of accuracy over distance.
All bar two of the par-4s clock in under 450 yards, with three of them less than 400 yards. Even the two par-5s are only 523 yards and 574 yards.
As such, players often lay back off the tee with driving distance amongst the lowest on the PGA Tour.
Off the tee, avoiding the four-inch rough certainly helps on approach to small greens, but what players do on their second shot has always been much more important, with the last 10 winners' average rank for SG: Approach being ninth and SG: Off the Tee being 23rd, as per Golf Betting System.
Scrambling is notoriously difficult at River Highlands, and players who aren’t finding their share of greens in regulation simply won’t score well enough to contend.
Interestingly, the winner of the Travelers Championship tends not to have found themselves in the grind of contending for a US Open. Going back over the last 12 editions, there’s only Chez Reavie in 2019 who had found himself in contention the previous week, with four winners missing the cut at the US Open.
While greens are small, they’re not overly difficult to hit with so many approach shots coming with short irons and wedges; indeed, around half of all approaches are from 125-175 yards, and nearly a quarter will be from inside 125 yards, meaning skilled wedge players are certainly at an advantage.
Greens are a bent/poa mix, a surface often seen in the north-east of the country as well as north of the border, and tend to run at a pacey 12 on the Stimpmeter.
Rory McIlroy skips another Signature Event, leaving Scottie Scheffler as the big favourite.
Scheffler tops our Power Rankings, but who makes our top five? Read on to find out.
5 - Matt Fitzpatrick
After his remarkable run of three wins in four events, Matt Fitzpatrick experienced an understandable dip in form. So high are his levels at the moment, that T52-T14-T36 at Signature Event-Major-Signature Event represents a dip in form.
Fitzpatrick bounced back with a solo-second at the Canadian Open and found himself right in the mix at the US Open, but Wyndham Clark lapping the field combined with a stone-cold putter on the Sunday saw Fitzpatrick fall into 22nd place.
Nevertheless, there was lots of good work from Fitzpatrick across the week, ranking 11th for SG: Approach and third for SG: ARG and most importantly finishing a place above little brother Alex.
Fitzpatrick’s driver wasn’t cooperating last week, but that club will be taken out of his hands at River Highlands, where fairways will be much narrower. The course plays more to Fitzpatrick’s strengths of accuracy, particularly on approach, while his excellent wedge game should set up plenty of birdie chances.
The Englishman doesn’t have the strongest record in this part of the world, but has improved in all four of his appearances with a best finish of T17 last year. Fitzpatrick also has shown form on other shorter courses, finishing runner-up and T16 at TPC Sawgrass and Pebble Beach this year, as well as winning at Harbour Town for a second time.
4 - Sam Burns
Has Sam Burns’ time been and gone? It’s hard to get within a whisker of a US Open on too many occasions and Burns has now come up short in back-to-back years.
That said, Burns is playing some of the best golf of his career right now and has done just about everything but win. He perhaps should have won at Pebble Beach and perhaps should have won at Muirfield Village. His approach play had held him back for too long but even that is spiking well, and he ranked third at the US Open for SG: Approach.
To a degree, the Travelers Championship boils down to a putting contest, and there aren’t many better with the flat stick than Burns who has gained strokes in 10 straight events on the greens.
3 - Jon Rahm
Tommy Fleetwood could add himself to the growing list of Europeans thankful it’s not an odd-numbered year, with the Englishman counting himself alongside the likes of Robert MacIntyre, Sepp Straka, Viktor Hovland and Shane Lowry as Ryder Cuppers who have been well below their best this season.
Amongst Fleetwood’s poorer showings in 2026, he finished 49th at the Arnold Palmer, T33 at the Masters, T52 at the RBC Heritage and missed the cut at the PGA Championship. There have been better displays, recently finishing T5 at the Truist at T4 at the Memorial, but it’s not felt like Fleetwood was ever particularly close to a second PGA Tour victory.
Things seem to be turning around, however. The 35-year-old was T3 heading into the final round at the Canadian Open and T10 heading into the final round at the US Open.
There had been glimpses, but Fleetwood’s iron play hadn’t been at the consistently elite level it had in the previous 18 months, actually losing strokes on approach in three out of four starts heading into the summer.
There’s still some inconsistency, but at their best, all facets of Fleetwood’s game are outstanding, and more than good enough to win tournaments.
Fleetwood should have won this event 12 months ago, when cruelly denied on the 72nd hole by Keegan Bradley, but with a PGA Tour win behind him, he can go one better this time around.
2 - Xander Schauffele
After a challenging 2025, we’re starting to see the best of Xander Schauffele again in 2026.
Since a T24 at the Arnold Palmer at the start of March, Schauffele’s finishes read: 3-T4-T9-T12-T60-T7-T29-T11.
Two poor weeks with the putter were responsible for the pair of underwhelming results, but Schauffele’s ball-striking is getting back to its old level. The two-time major champion is driving the ball as well as anyone in the world at the moment, taking pressure off the rest of his game.
While his distance off the tee makes him dangerous at long courses, Schauffele has a strong record at shorter courses too, winning this event in 2022, as well as recording three more top-20s since 2020.
1 - Scottie Scheffler
It cannot be long until Scottie Scheffler finally wins an event... can it? Of course, Scheffler does already have one win to his name this season, but it feels like a lifetime ago, and a second is long overdue.
His dip in form was not unsubstantial; Scheffler failed to record a top-10 finish for three straight events, and while that’s not uncommon for anyone else on the PGA Tour, it’s the first time Scheffler had suffered such a fate since 2022.
Since then, Scheffler recorded three straight solo-seconds – simply unheard of – before going T14-3-T12 in the run-up to the US Open. But for Wyndham Clark starting the final round six shots clear, Scheffler could well have completed the Grand Slam on Sunday.
TPC River Highlands is one of the many, many courses Scheffler has been victorious at, winning the 2024 Travelers, finishing T4 and T6 in the year before and after.
Frankly, Scheffler is playing far too well not to start winning soon, and it’s increasingly feeling like a matter of when, not if.
Any odds displayed were correct at the time of writing and are subject to fluctuation.
