Rory McIlroy, once again the No. 1 golfer in the world, caught Andy Bessette in the corner of his eye after a gathering of PGA players in Florida recently.
“He pointed to me and said, ‘elevated. ... elevated is good,’” Bessette said. “Or something like that.”
It’s exactly like that. The Travelers Championship was rewarded for its many years of successful events at the TPC in Cromwell, its popularity among players, its loyalty to the PGA and its willingness to step up with the prize money to gain “elevated” status, which is tops with The Tour’s new two-tiered system.
What does that mean for the tour’s stop in Connecticut, a fixture of our summer since 1952?
“It’s going to be world class, must-attend,” said Bessette, the Travelers’ executive vice president and chief administrative officer. “The top players want to play each other. That’s how the best in the world get even better.”
In the current struggle between the PGA and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour, which has been siphoning off top players with ridiculous money, there are bound to be casualties, but the Travelers has been elevated out of harm’s way, and to the right side of the new divide between haves and have-nots.
“You look at the evolution and history of this event and all of the things that have happened over the years,” said tournament director Nathan Grube, “this is one of those really big moments that is now part of the history of our event, and I could not not be more excited for our fans, sponsors, everyone. It’s a really cool time for our event.”
LIV Golf was picking off players even as the Travelers got underway last June, with Brooks Koepka defecting on the eve of the first round. The 33rd-ranked player in the world, Jason Kokrak, hit a second-round shot over a green and into the crowd, and he packed up and left, DQed and on his way to LIV. PGA commissioner Jay Monahan came to town to rally his troops with a fiery presser.
“When everything started happening,” Grube said, “it put a microscope on who we are as a PGA event and who somebody else is. The closer we looked at who we were, the more our sponsors supported us, the more our fans, our volunteers, supported us. I never [stopped] feeling strong about who we were as a PGA Tour event.”
To counteract the LIV appeals of bigger purses, smaller fields and no cuts, the PGA restructured. In addition to the four majors, there will be 13 elevated tournaments, and players commit to playing in 16 events, the elevated tournaments, plus three others. The Travelers, which raised more than $2.5 million for local charities in 2022, was not one of the nine that were announced as elevated when the plan was unveiled in August but was among the four added for 2023, the PGA announced last week.
“It strengthens the game more,” Bessette said. “We have a terrific event. The PGA likes what we do. The players love us.”
To make this happen, the Travelers and the PGA reached agreement on upping the purse from $8.3 million in 2022 and a projected $8.6 million in 2023 to $20 million. This is expected to bring all of the top 20 golfers in the Player Impact Program, which uses metrics to rank and reward the most popular players, as well as the best on tour.
Though numerous injuries have limited his schedule, Tiger Woods was No. 1 on that list when it was inaugurated last March, good for $8 million. Could that finally mean a Tiger sighting in Connecticut?
Woods told Bessette in Florida that he’s just not able to play as much as he’d like, but it wasn’t a “no.”
“He falls into the category,” Grube said, “but he has a very unique situation. Every time he plays, he’s going to be so excited just to be playing golf, so he’s on a very different road than a lot of guys.”
OK, so Tiger’s a maybe. But the top-tier status will likely bring the rest of the top 20, and the majority of the top 150 players in 2023. Then what? The work Bessette and Grube have done in building relationships with players has brought strong fields, usually at least half of the top 10, year after year, even though the event is run the week after the U.S. Open.
That will be just as important now. The PGA has not yet announced what its schedule will look like beyond 2023. The speculation has been a rotation of elevated status that could leave these latest four in, the WM Phoenix Open, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo Championship and the Travelers, being elevated once every three or four years. If that happens, the task will be keeping the River Highlands experience attractive so that top players will make it one of their optional picks during off years.
More details about the new-look PGA could come in a month or so. What we know now is, the Travelers Championship will be a big deal, not just in Connecticut, but nationally come next June. There will be more of everything, more money, more top players, more exposure, more media coverage.
More. And bigger. The tournament officials gathered Monday afternoon to begin planning for a golf tournament that will have to be run like a major, the closest thing to The Masters north of Augusta.
“This is a new era and a new experience,” Grube said. “Fans have always come here. Players come here with an excited sense of anticipation of what’s next. That anticipation really motivates us, and we’re going to deliver on that excited anticipation of what’s next.”
