2024 PGA TOUR Golf Bets: The Travelers Championship Final Thoughts, Betting Card, OAD
The 2024 PGA TOUR golf season continues, with TPC River Highlands next on tap to host the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, CT, beginning Thursday. Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, and Xander Schauffele headline among Travelers Championship bets this week, as John Haslbauer provides his favorite picks among all the golf odds for this tourney. Below, you’ll find the best odds across betting sites for each player.
One more time, the PGA TOUR has kicked it up a notch with the final Signature Event of the 2024 season. The Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands was built to host high-octane tournaments, even if modern technology has begun to pass this 6,800 yard venue by. There are so many memorable risk-reward holes on this course, and between the field, the fans, and the history of climactic finishes, I could not be more excited to watch the action this Thursday!
Though intended to be a positional venue like Pete Dye’s other works like TPC Sawgrass and Harbour Town, longer hitters have started to find an edge at TPC River Highlands, in turn pushing winning scores closer to -20 over recent years. That’s very docile for a par-70 with just two par-5s, so wedge play and putting are two areas I’m honing in on specifically to find contenders at the 2024 Travelers CHampionship.
Below, we’ll go through my Travelers Championship bets. Click the odds anywhere in this article to place Travelers Championship wagers. For a full breakdown of the tournament and course, visit my Travelers Championship preview.
TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP Bets: THE FAVORITES
Find the comparison table at the bottom of this post for Travelers Championship odds and the best available prices across sportsbooks in your state. Navigate to my longshots post for more golf DFS picks and considerations.
HOW I BUILT MY Travelers championship BETTING CARD
The original plan for my betting card was to deploy Rory McIlroy as a single bullet. I was at the Travelers Championship in 2022 and watched him effortlessly attack this course with the freedom he often talks about at Quail Hollow. Things quickly changed after McIlroy’s meltdown at Pinehurst, however, so we’re going to pivot to Plan B.
The Signature Events have been boom or bust this season, seemingly rewarding the favorites or deep longshots. While The Travelers is one of the easier scoring Signature Events on the calendar that should open itself up to more randomness from the wider field, there seems to be growing separation between the elite in-form players and the rest of the TOUR. With that, I’ve constructed a very concentrated card of three favorites, who each enter in great form and have shown an extra gear to attack short courses with aggressive driving and spike putting upside.
From a unit allocation standpoint, it’s back to business as usual for my weekly stake at the 2024 Travelers Championship.
- Outrights – 3.5U in to pay 25U each
- FRL – 0.5U in to pay out 10U+ each
- Full Tournament Matchups – 1U in to pay out 2U
- Props – 1.5U in to pay out 3U+ each
the TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP BETS: OUTRIGHTS (3.5 UNITS)
Collin Morikawa
My Bet: +1600
Best Available Odds:
Two weeks ago, I bet Collin Morikawa at this same price at the Memorial Tournament. A runner up finish to Scottie Scheffler and T14 at the U.S. Open later, and I don’t see any reason to hop off now. Morikawa is one of the hottest ball strikers in the game right now, with that success all becoming in spite of his lack of distance off-the-tee. That won’t be an impediment at TPC River Highlands’ 6,800 yard set up, which should allow Morikawa to lean on his elite approach play for further separation.
Since the Masters, he’s posted seven consecutive top-15 finishes, making a 2024 PGA TOUR victory feel inevitable.
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Ludvig Aberg
My Bet: +1800
Best Available Odds:
I comically drafted up a Spotlight feature of Rory McIlroy and his prospects to win this tournament mere hours before his collapse and ensuing tailspin at the U.S. Open. While I didn’t have a chance to redraft a replacement feature, Aberg is the one player who would have come to mind for all the same reasons I loved McIlroy this week.
Aberg is an elite total driver with a towering apex on his drives and approaches. At TPC River Highlands, that creates a new gear in his arsenal to cut off angles on these short par-4s and leave more wedge approaches in than his competitors are likely to have. But, similar to the game Bryson DeChambeau put on display at Pinehurst last week, Aberg has the wherewithal to club down strategically on positional courses in situations where creating angles is the more prudent play to purely bombing. It’s that approach which led to his first career PGA TOUR win at the RSM Classic, and ensuing top-10 finishes on comp positional setups like the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, THE PLAYERS, and RBC Heritage this season.
Sam Burns
My Bet: +3500
Best Available Odds:
Colonial Country Club (pre-2024 Gil Hanse Restoration) is my favorite comp course to TPC River Highlands. Both were designed with the intent of forcing positional layups off-the-tee, but became defenseless from modern day bombers who’ve learned to attack aggressively with towering tee shots to clear tree lines pushed against the fairway. That approach paid dividends for Burns in his 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge victory – the fifth of his young PGA TOUR career – and has manifested into two top-25 finishes over the last three years at The Travelers.
With four top-15 finishes over his last five starts, Burns continues to trend well, and the continued trajectory of TPC River Highlands playing more and more like a putting contest should cater further into his strengths.
the Travelers Championship BETS: FIRST-ROUND LEADER (0.5 UNITS)
Wyndham Clark
My Bet: +5000
Best Available Odds:
The USA Olympics roster was confirmed this week, and all the talk has been about how Wyndham Clark doesn’t deserve to be on the team over Bryson DeChambeau. As factually correct as that may be, Clark should have a growing chip on his shoulder to prove the haters wrong. He has a better track record on short and easy courses than the recent run of Major venues, and should be a threat to go low on Thursday.
Harris English
My Bet: +6000
Best Available Odds:
The good thing about players like Harris English is they never have to be in great form to go low on any given course. That’s because the putter is the strength of his game, and what catapulted him to a victory here in 2021. He has four top-25 finishes at The Travelers to prove his 2021 victory was not a one-time blip.
Tom Hoge
My Bet: +6600
Best Available Odds:
First Round Leader cards need stability, so with no Aaron Rai in this Signature Event field, we turn to his tried and true understudy, Tom Hoge. TPC River Highlands is a wedge player’s dream, with most shots funneled between 125-175 yards, and that’s where Tom Hoge is at his best, ranking No. 1 in the field in Proximity from that distance.
Matthieu Pavon
My Bet: +6600
Best Available Odds:
Matthieu Pavon bets are the closest thing we have to lottery tickets in PGA betting, as he bucks all trends of form or course fit, yet has consistently found himself in the mix at every iconic venue this season. I couldn’t quite get there on Pavon for the full tournament, but I think FRL is the right market to find exposure to Pavon’s boom or bust nature.
Adam Hadwin
My Bet: +7000
Best Available Odds:
This is the time of year Adam Hadwin typically starts to heat up between the Travelers, Rocket Mortgage Classic, and John Deere Classic. A reliable fairway finder in great ball-striking form, he’s been trending very well this season and is strong enough on the greens to get out to a hot start this Thursday.
The Travelers championship BETS: PROPS (2.5 UNITS)
Full Tournament Matchup: Max Homa > Denny McCarthy
My Bet: -110
If you put this prop out in any given tournament five months ago, you might find Max Homa’s odds closer to -300 in this head to head with Denny McCarthy. I understand golf is cyclical and form comes and goes, but I have to side with long term pedigree in this matchup between the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup and standout and a 0-time PGA TOUR winner. Homa’s form has been up-and-down, but that’s forgivable over this recent stretch of difficult Major championships. McCarthy on the other hand, has found some consistency with top-30 finishes, but lacks Homa’s upside to reliably play into contention.
Top-20 Finish: Si Woo Kim
My Bet: +140
Best Available Odds:
The worst thing about the PGA TOUR’s decision to reduce its most competitive events to limited fields, is it’s impact on the placement market. There are simply too many good-but-not-great players funneled into the same +150 to +200 range in the top-20 market, which really isn’t calling out to me. Instead, I’ll ride the Pete Dye narrative and side with Si Woo Kim, who has finished top-25 in each of his first three appearances on Dye courses this season across The AmEx, THE PLAYERS, and RBC Heritage.
GOLF DAILY FANTASY CONTESTS
Check out my golf DFS picks post for the Travelers Championship for Underdog drafts strategy, along with traditional DFS contests.
ONE AND DONE
My Pick: Ludvig Aberg
I was surprised to realize I haven’t deployed Aberg yet in OAD this season, and with him being the best available player from a betting odds standpoint at my disposal, this was an easy selection for me at the final Signature Event of the 2024 season. With the Meniscus injury seemingly behind him, Aberg has returned to the elite ball striking form we’ve already come to expect in his second year on TOUR, and his improvements on the greens should lead to an even higher ceiling than some of his other class ball striking counterparts.
If not Aberg, I would also consider playing Collin Morikawa, Sam Burns, or Xander Schauffele in OAD.
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The travelers championship BETS: THE CARD
That’ll do it for this week’s PGA TOUR golf bets. Best of luck this week with your own Travelers Championship bets, and see you on Sunday for the Rocket Mortgage Classic preview.