The Travelers Championship: What the PGA Tour Is Truly All About

The words Southern Hospitality have become as much a part of our lexicon as "Google it," or "LA Smog," but one could certainly argue that small town New England hospitality is every bit as warm.

The PGA Tour has been coming to the Hartford, Conn. area for the past 59 years and the Travelers Championship has become a staple of the community.

Complete with a popular pro-am day, which is typically attended by more well-known athletes and celebrities than most PGA Tour events outside of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Bob Hope Classic. There are concerts in the evenings, a children's play area on the grounds and a crowd that is far more laid back and respectful than their loud, boisterous Yankee fan counterparts just two hours down I-95, the Travelers Championship is Connecticut's version of a golf state fair. 

Only this state fair benefits a lot more people than just the lucky, touring pro that takes home a $1.08 million first-place check.

Since 1952 the Travelers Championship has raised more than $28 million for charity and in 2010 alone the tournament donated $1.1 million to 130 charities throughout the region.

From the moment you arrive at TPC River Highlands, it becomes clear that the more than 3,000 volunteers associated with this event are truly passionate about what they are doing.  They visibly go out of their way to accommodate spectators, players and the media.  It’s New England hospitality at its best.

I have been as critical as anyone about how smaller PGA Tour events can dilute the overall product, and how if some smaller events were to simply disappear and the PGA Tour had a more definable offseason, the overall product would be more desirable during the heart of the regular season.

However, a few trips to the Travelers Championship has completely changed my view on this matter. 

Sure, casual golf fans might not tune into to this weekend’s coverage of the Travelers Championship, but that doesn’t mean the players, the tens of thousands of fans and the local community don’t love this event down to it’s core. 

Television ratings aside, it’s a win-win for everyone directly involved with the Travelers Championship. 

And at the end of the day, what is the PGA Tour?

It is a professional golf circuit that tours the country to entertain local communities while raising boatloads of money for local charities.

For touring professionals, it’s a way to make a living, and a very good one at that.  But the 100-plus touring professionals in the field this week make up a very small percentage of those that will truly benefit from the Travelers Championship.

Here’s a little story that explains why events like the Travelers Championship are so important.

Last year while covering the Travelers Championship I received a ride from the media center to my car from one of the many on-site volunteers. 

During the ride I asked the volunteer how long he had been working at the Travelers, to which he replied 12 years. 

He then went on to tell me that he was associated with a charity that donated Thanksgiving Turkeys to those who could not afford them. 

I, of course told him how great I thought that was, to which he replied, “volunteering for four days a year in order to donate turkeys to those less fortunate is nothing.  After all, I know where I’ll be having my Thanksgiving dinner this year. Many people don’t.”

And that right there is why every single PGA Tour event is just as important as the next.  Because although events like the Travelers may not receive as much media attention as others, and television ratings might be lower than events where Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are in the field, for local communities like Cromwell, CT, these PGA Tour events truly improve the lives of countless men, women and children.

So, next time you think about how losing a few smaller events may be beneficial to the PGA Tour as a whole, as I used to often think, remember those Thanksgiving Turkeys.

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