With the third major championship out of the way, we are on to the next signature event this week in Hartford, in the Travelers Championship. Last week, we just missed going 4/4 in the picks, only getting our Tyrrell Hatton pick (who almost won the event) wrong.
This week we have a much different test of golf. TPC River Highlands has hosted this event for well over a decade now and it remains one of the shortest courses on the PGA Tour. With wider fairways, it also makes the course much more manageable and won’t test players anything like Oakmont did last week, which produced a winning score of just 1 under par. In contrast, the winning score at this week’s event has been -22 and -23 in the last two seasons.
Nestled in the suburbs of Hartford in Cromwell, CA, TPC River Highlands is a Pete Dye redesign venue that has smaller greens and does require good short iron play to maximize scoring. Players will also need to be proficient on the Poa greens.
I wrote more about the course in this week’s Travelers Championship Cheat Sheet.
“The course itself was originally designed back in 1928, but it was reworked by perennial PGA course designer Pete Dye in 1982. It is somewhat comparable to other more technical tracks around the PGA, but it does differ in some respects from older venues like Waialae CC and Harbour Town in that its fairways are extremely easy to hit. This tends to give the big hitters a little more leeway off the tee, and it’s helped players like Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson find success at River Highlands in the past. The poa greens are also noteworthy as they tend to be a surface we see only on the west coast. West Coast specialists like Dustin Johnson, Harris English, and Chez Reavie (among others) have found this course appealing for that reason alone and taking a look at who tends to putt well on poa is a good idea if you are diving into some recent form stats.
In general, Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Putting stats have been the most important metrics to target here. Of the past nine winners at TPC River Highlands, only one (English 2021) has failed to gain over 4.0 strokes on approach in the week of their win. This venue is extremely short by TOUR standards, so good proximity stats from 150 yards and in should also be essential to success.”
DraftKings has a lot of full-round totals up for this week’s event already, and that’s where we’ll be focusing once again. With this event taking place a week after the US Open, it’s important to note the results there, not just from a final standings point of view, but a statistical one as well. Last year’s first and second-place finishers both finished outside the top 20 at the U.S. Open in 2024 (also played the week before the Travelers) but struck the ball well at the year’s third major and gained big on approach.
DraftKings Pick6 has full tournament totals up for this week, so I’ll again be focusing on FULL TOURNAMENT totals, specifically finishing positions (“Better Than” or “Worse Than”), and looking for players who can perhaps benefit from solid ball-striking now that we are on an easier course.
Top DraftKings Pick6 Picks for the Travelers Championship
Jordan Spieth Better Than 25.5 Finishing Position
Spieth has won at TPC River Highlands before (2017) and comes into this year’s version of the Travelers looking like he’s close to finding his top form. The three-time major winner has been a little up and down in 2025 but comes in off a solid T23 at the US Open, where he gained 8.7 strokes tee to green and 8.6 strokes on approach. Overall, he’s now gained strokes on approach in four straight starts and has top-10 finishes in two of his last six starts.
While the putter has been a bit off of late, Spieth’s magic short game has also been flourishing, as he’s gained strokes around the green in six straight starts. All-in-all, he ranks top 15 in strokes gained approach, around the green, off the tee, and tee-to-green stats over the last 24 rounds and has the look of a player ready for a big week.
Despite the nice lead-in and very positive course history, his finishing total this week remains quite high in DraftKings Pick6 games at 25.5. While the putter could stay cold, with the way he’s striking the ball, even an average putting week likely gets us to under this 25.5 total, giving us ample reason to be bullish on him this week.
Si Woo Kim Better Than 27.5 Finishing Position
Kim didn’t immediately come to mind when looking at the course as he has just one top 12 finish at this week’s course in eight career starts (T11 in 2020). However, he’s a player who has, to me, looked ready to pop for some big weeks soon.
The South Korean had his best finish ever in a major at the PGA Championship in May (T8 Quail Hollow), and while that hasn’t paid off with immediate dividends, he’s continued to play well. Kim was near the front of the leaderboard after Round 1 at Oakmont, and while he finished the week in just T42, he gained 7.6 strokes tee to green and 5.2 strokes on approach for the event. Oakmont was also the first time he’d lost strokes putting in four starts, so it’s not a dip I’m overly concerned about.
Ultimately, he’s dominated these sorts of shorter tracks throughout his career, so with the ball-striking looking good and that confidence-building top 10 from May in the bag, playing for him to post a top 25 finish, on what should be a very positive track, seems like the right call.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout Better Than 38.5 Finishing Position
The South African is another player who is coming off his best finish in a major last week. Bezuidenhout grinded out a nice final round at Oakmont and ended the week in T12, just one shot out of the top 10. Overall, his game has been trending well as he also made the cut at the PGA and finished T19 at Colonial a couple of weeks ago. While he is a putter-based player, Bezuidenhout’s irons have been solid of late, and he’s now gained over 3.5 strokes on approach in three of his last four starts.
Bezuidenhout is never going to dominate off the tee, so the wider fairways and short layout certainly favor him this week. As mentioned above, he’s also capable of spiking with his putter on almost any surface and gained 4.8 strokes putting on Oakmont’s Poa greens. With Poa surfaces again in play this week, we could see more continuation from him with that club.
Having landed a T23 at River Highlands last season and in solid form, I don’t see much reason to shy away from the “Better Than” option with his total sitting at 38.5.
Scottie Scheffler Worse Than 3.5 Finishing Position
Look, I don’t like the idea of fading Scottie Scheffler in any golfing event, but this is an extremely low total we are talking about. If you are taking the Better Than side of this play, then you need him to finish inside the top 3, something he has failed to do in four of his last seven starts, including last week.
Sure, Scheffler remains a great closer, something he proved at this event last season when he tracked down Tom Kim on Sunday and beat him in a playoff. However, he remains somewhat volatile with the putter and has gained less than a stroke putting in four of his last five starts at River Highlands.
If this total were even a point higher, I would recommend staying off, but at 3.5, I like playing for the world number one to finish outside the top 3 this week. It’s a week after a major on a course where putting can make a huge difference, and that alone could allow a lot of different styles of players to pop and push Scheffler a little further down than usual.
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