Ariya gives LPGA Thailand first local winner

Dustin Johnson returns to defend his title at the Travelers Championship, his first win last season which propelled him to win his first FedExCup. TPC River Highlands boasts an impressive field with many of the TOUR’s top players travelling across the country from the U.S. Open in California the week prior. FIELD NOTES: Current FedExCup leader Patrick Cantlay is looking for his third win of the season… Five of the top-10 golfers in the world are teeing it up in Connecticut including Cantlay, Johnson, Patrick Reed, Bryson DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka… Phil Mickelson, who won this event in 2001 and 2002, is back at TPC River Highlands as the reigning PGA Championship winner… Garrick Higgo, who won the Palmetto Championship, will make his first non-major start as a PGA TOUR winner… Ten former winners at TPC River Highlands will tee it up including Bubba Watson, who has won the event three times… Sponsor Exemptions include Chase Koekpa (brother to Brooks), John Pak (much celebrated college player of the year), Davis Thompson (formerly ranked as the No.1 amateur in the world), and Austin Eckroat (four-time All-American)… Rickie Fowler returns to action after missing his first U.S. Open since 2010. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 FedExCup points. COURSE: TPC River Highlands, par 70, 6,841 yards. Located between Connecticut towns Hartford and New Haven, TPC River Highlands has been a PGA TOUR venue for 38 years now. The course is site of the TOUR’s lone 58 (Jim Furyk, 2016) but the key stretch comes on No’s 15-17 which play around a four-acre lake. Pete Dye oversaw a redesign of the course in the early 1980s, while Bobby Weed worked on an upgrade about a decade later after consulting with TOUR players Roger Maltbie and Howard Twitty. STORYLINES: Can more low scores be put up at TPC River Highlands? Besides Furyk’s 58, Patrick Cantlay shot 60 in 2011 (the low score in TOUR history by an amateur), plus Johnson’s 61 last year in the third round… Bubba Watson is still looking to join Billy Casper as the only four-time winner of the Travelers… The tournament was played without fans in 2020 but will welcome approximately 10,000 per day for the tournament… 14 total major championships have been won by golfers in the field at TPC River Highlands, and Phil Mickelson accounts for six of those. Mickelson returned to the Travelers after a 15-year absence in 2019 but has teed it up every year since… The U.S. Open fatigue hasn’t quite impacted the winners of the Travelers Championship. Each of Dustin Johnson, Chez Reavie, Watson, Jordan Spieth, Watson again, and Russell Knox all played the U.S. Open, but Johnson (COVID-19 schedule change) and Knox (Olympic schedule change) get asterisks since their events happened at different times. 72-HOLE RECORD: 258, Kenny Perry (2009) 18-HOLE RECORD: 58, Jim Furyk (4th round, 2016) LAST TIME: Dustin Johnson’s victory at the 2020 Travelers Championship marked the first of three wins on the season as Johnson would go on to win the FedExCup. He backed up a sizzling 61 on Saturday with a 67 on Sunday to top Kevin Streelman by one shot – despite making bogey on two of his final six holes. Streelman birdied No’s 10 and 13 but was stuck in neutral the rest of the way in. He hit his approach on 18 to 37 feet and when he couldn’t convert the birdie, the title was Johnson’s. Will Gordon and Mackenzie Hughes finished at 17-under for the week and T3, while Kevin Na, at 16-under, rounded out the top five. Johnson’s victory broke a 20-tournament drought. It was his 13th TOUR season and with the win in Connecticut, he had won in each of them. HOW TO FOLLOW (All times ET) Television: Thursday-Friday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (CBS). PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday 6:45 a.m.-6 p.m. ET (Featured Groups), Saturday-Sunday 8 a.m.-3 p.m. ET (Featured Groups). Saturday-Sunday 3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET (Featured Holes). Radio: Thursday-Friday, 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday 1 p.m.-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio).

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LAS VEGAS - Sergio Garcia was putting with his eyes closed on the way to victory last week at the Sanderson Farms Championship but they were wide open when he holed out for a timely eagle on Friday at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. The veteran Spaniard connected from 111 yards with his lob wedge on the par-4 6th hole at TPC Summerlin to reinvigorate his charge up the leaderboard and put him in position for back-to-back wins on TOUR. After a first round 5-under 66 had him sitting four shots off the pace, Garcia made an early second-round climb with four birdies in his opening seven holes only to then stall with seven straight pars. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Fowler makes putter switch But his magical eagle boosted him to double digits under par and a closing birdie helped him to a 64 and 12 under total, just two back of early pace-setters Patrick Cantlay and Martin Laird. "I hit a really nice shot just right of the hole a with a tiny little draw. Obviously saw the ball bounce just right of the hole and spun," Garcia said of the hole-out. "From where I was you couldn’t quite see it, so I saw a little bit and I thought it hit the hole or hit the flag and I thought it stayed next to it. Obviously the little amount of people that were there, they kind of went crazy. It was nice to know that it was in." Garcia's win in Jackson last week was his first on the PGA TOUR since the 2017 Masters and first anywhere in over a year. The 40-year-old knows when opportunities come you need to take advantage so he doesn't intend to step off the gas this weekend. "When you have one of those good moments, you try to enjoy it as much as possible and hopefully make the most out of it," he said. Joining him at 12 under is another veteran who recently arrested a form slide. Stewart Cink won the Safeway Open last month for his first victory since 2009. The renewed purple patch continued with a T12 last week and now he is once again in the mix. Cink was dropping putts from everywhere and had two eagles during his 8-under 63 on Friday. All up he made 133 feet, seven inches of putts Friday which had him gaining four shots on the morning wave in Strokes Gained: Putting. "It wasn’t like it was a ton of bombs, but I hit it 15 feet a lot and a lot of those went in," the 47-year-old Cink said. "I’ve made some changes in my game the last month or so and it's paid off really quickly with a win, and now it’s just fun to get out there and wail on the driver and see the shots. Golf is a fun game when you got things going right, and hopefully let it last a long time."

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