CROMWELL, Conn. – The Travelers Championship, the third tournament on the PGA Tour after a 90-day layoff due to the coronavirus pandemic, began last week with a series of positive tests for the virus among players and caddies. The event walked cautiously.
But in the final round on Sunday afternoon, the uncertainty, drama, and accompanying importance seemed almost reassuringly familiar when another PGA Tour event closed with tense and pressing pressure.
There was Dustin Johnson, ranked sixth on the tour, standing in a pond with his pants desperately rolled up trying to salvage the pair a few minutes after he hit a tee shot out of bounds and close enough to a railroad to be a stowaway. There was Brendon Todd, who started the day with a two-shot lead, having to endure the dreaded despair of a splinter shot that ruined his round. Kevin Streelman was making a late charge as if conjuring up the mojo of his 2014 Traveler win, when he finished the final round with seven consecutive birdies.
Oh yes, and Bryson DeChambeau, who has gained 40 pounds from an intense training regimen designed to master touring layouts, once again smashed towering units that made some holes look like those of a pitch and putt field. However, it turns out that throwing and putting remains a challenge for most golfers, including DeChambeau.
In the end, at the TPC River Highlands golf course, about 12 miles outside of Hartford, Connecticut, Johnson had the right combination of tee strength and green prowess to claim the championship for a hit on Streelman. For Johnson, who pitched a final 67 round to finish 19 under par for the tournament, it was his 21st win on tour and the first since winning the World Golf Championship in Mexico in February 2019. However, winning the title Traveler means Johnson has won a touring event in each of the last 13 seasons. Only Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Tiger Woods have longer winning streaks in consecutive PGA Tour seasons.
“Obviously it’s a great streak and every time they mention you by those names, it’s obviously a great achievement,” Johnson said Sunday. “But it was a long time between wins and I hope I don’t have to wait that long for the next one.”
Johnson had a career career loss of 61 during the third round on Saturday and was forced to wait a delay of about an hour on Sunday when the thunderstorms moved through central Connecticut. Johnson led the tournament with three holes to play at the time.
“The delay in the rain didn’t help because I had time to think about things,” he said. “I had been in a good mood before that.”
It would be more accurate to say that Johnson had settled down after an adventurous stretch of golf when he chased after Todd, but was suddenly reeling from tee shots. Altogether, Johnson had three bogeys and four birdies in his last 12 holes.
A bogey on the seventh hole started the stretch backwards, but Johnson recovered by sinking a 27-foot birdie putt that snapped from right to left on the eighth hole. He then birdied the next two holes as well. At the 13th hole, Johnson appeared to be in cruise control, but then he hit his puck out of bounds to the left and struggled to bogey over what should have been an easy par 5 for the long-driving Johnson. But he recovered with a little bird in the next hole.
On the 15th hole, a short, manageable par 4, Johnson’s tee shot was heading for a pond on the left. Although the ball landed at high speed just a few feet from the water, fortunately for Johnson it remained on the grass bank.
“I hit a hybrid 3 very badly,” Johnson said of the shot. “I don’t know what was going on with my tee tees today. And I was a little lucky there, but I still had to go up and down equally. ”
Johnson’s only chance to advance the golf ball to the green from approximately 25 yards away was to get into the pond, which he did after taking off his shoes and socks and pulling his pants up just below knee level. His chunk of chip from the bank traveled about a third of the way to the green, but Johnson, after meeting his shoes and socks, fired his third shot four feet from the hole. He made the putt pair.
A bogey on the 16th after the weather delay reduced his lead over Streelman in one fell swoop, but Streelman, who shot 67 on Sunday, was unable to replicate his 2014 magic on the greens. He finished with five successive pairs. He was Streelman’s second runner-up of the year, having been runner-up at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February.
“It’s kind of disappointing, taking one last birdie would have been nice,” said Streelman. “But I have to take many positive aspects. I just played beautifully. “
Todd, who got over golf’s dreaded swing shots a few years ago, had a two-shot lead over Johnson when his approach shot to par 4, hole 12 deviated slightly to the right of the green. Todd was left with an awkward chip shot uphill less than eight feet from the green.
It was a delicate shot, but Todd shot the ball out of his wedge and flew over the green and off to the right. Now that he needed a flop shot to ascend the green, Todd’s attempt was short and he rolled downhill. A putt has yet to hit the green and two putts later Todd was out of the question after a triple bogey seven. For Todd, it was the first time he hadn’t made a par or better since the fourth hole of Thursday’s first round.
The PGA Tour will resume next week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit starting July 2.
