CROMWELL, Conn. – No hard feelings, Rory.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said he understands why Rory McIlroy withdrew from the Travelers Championship – the last signature event on the calendar – to recover from a collapse at the end of Sunday at the US Open.
“Sometimes you just have to focus on what you need to focus on,” Monahan said Wednesday, the day before the tournament at TPC River Highlands outside of Hartford. “And that’s what he’s doing and that’s exactly what he should do, because that’s what he thinks is the right path.”
McIlroy twice had a one-shot lead at Pinehurst No. 2 before bogeying three of the last four holes, missing a pair of par putts from within 4 feet. Instead of McIlroy’s fifth major championship — and first in 10 years — Bryson DeChambeau won his second.
On Monday, McIlroy said on social media that he would take three weeks off to “get myself together.” He plans to return July 10-13 for the Scottish Open, where he is the defending champion, followed by the English Open the following week at Royal Troon in Scotland.
Without him, there will be 71 players teeing off on Thursday in the limited field, exclusive uncut event at TPC River Highlands. McIlroy is the only one in the top eight in the world rankings or in the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings who will lose.
“If you look at the quality of the field we have this week, we are going to have a great Travelers Championship,” Monahan said. “And I’m looking forward to bringing Rory back to Scotland.”
The Travelers Championship is the only week of the year where Keegan Bradley has bragging rights over world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
Not only is Bradley the defending champion at TPC River Highlands, but the New England native may remind his Texan rival what the NBA Finals were like. Bradley’s Boston Celtics beat Scheffler’s Dallas Mavericks in a Game 5 clincher on Monday night.
Asked about his arrival in Celtics country shortly after Boston won its 18th NBA championship, Scheffler joked: “Do I have to answer that question?” Scheffler said he didn’t hear any commotion on the field, but a fan asked him to autograph a Celtics hat.
He refused.
“I don’t blame him,” Bradley said. “I wouldn’t like it either if I was a Dallas fan.”
Bradley grew up in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts as an ardent Boston sports fan and married the niece of Baseball Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk. At a news conference at Fenway Park last fall to introduce the local franchise to the new high-tech TGL circuit, he described the excitement of seeing the Red Sox clubhouse and giving Englishman Tyrrell Hatton a tour of the stadium.
The Travelers presented Bradley with one of Fenway’s wooden seats at the tournament’s media day in April.
“It’s one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever gotten – probably the coolest gift I’ve ever gotten in my life,” he said. “Having a Fenway Park seat in your home is spectacular.”
The Travelers will have 22 players out of the 60 that have already qualified for the Paris Olympicsincluding all four Americans: Scheffler, defending gold medalist Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa.
Others include Ludvig Aberg (Sweden), Viktor Hovland (Norway), Hideki Matsuyama (Japan) and Brits Tommy Fleetwood and Matthew Fitzpatrick. Although they play for their countries, the Olympics are a 72-hole, stroke-play tournament that will award medals to individuals with the lowest scores.
“There’s no team aspect to it. It would be cool if there was,” said Morikawa, who finished fourth in Tokyo, losing in a seven-man sudden-death playoff for the bronze medal on the fourth extra hole. “The caddies are definitely going to explore the course together, they’re going to do all the preparation together, share a lot of information, like it’s a Ryder Cup or a Presidents Cup, in that sense. But when it comes to Thursday, it’s our event, it’s our individual event.”
This does not mean that there is no patriotism involved.
“I’m not necessarily going to go out and try to play a lot of training with someone from a different country,” said Scheffler, who will make her Olympic debut and confessed she hadn’t given it much thought. “We’re trying to go there and win a medal for the USA, so it’ll probably be a tighter circle when we go there.”
Qualifying to determine Olympic spots was finalized with the conclusion of the US Open. Countries are limited to two players unless the third and fourth best players are ranked in the top 15 in the world.
Golf was in the Olympics at the beginning of the last century before being removed from the program for more than 100 years. He returned to Rio de Janeiro in 2016, this being the third round.
Scheffler said he is excited to be a part of the Summer Olympics and experience other sports, including basketball and tennis. He also wanted to take a trip to the Olympic Village to watch the other athletes train.
“I grew up playing a lot of sports and so being able to see the best in the world at their craft would be really special,” he said.
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