Travelers Championship: Friday's Top Stories

After a six-plus hour rain delay on Thursday, play is back underway at TPC River Highlands.

As we saw all too clearly last week at Congressional Country Club, a course with soft greens is no match for the best players in the world, and as might be expected, scores have been extremely so far on Friday.

The Travelers Championship can often turn into a birdiefest, but with all of the rain in the area over the past few days and temperatures expected to remain mild throughout the weekend, scoring records may fall for the second consecutive week on tour.

The Amateur

Coming off a T-21 at last week’s U.S. Open, 19-year-old Patrick Cantlay is currently three-under-par through his first 14 holes at the 2011 Travelers Championship.

Cantlay, a freshman at UCLA who won the Pac-10 Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year awards, is looking to make his mark on tour before he’s even able to rent a car.

Phil Mickelson is the last amateur to have won a PGA Tour event, so the chances of Cantlay actually winning this week are slim to say the least…but what a story it would be.

The Veterans

PGA Tour veterans Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk are both attending this week’s Travelers Championship and are in the mix after Round 1.

Singh opened with a three-under-par 67 and Furyk posted a two-under-par 68.

Furyk won three times last season and claimed the 2010 FedEx Cup title, but has yet to notch a victory in 2011.

Singh is looking for his first PGA Tour win since the 2008 Deutsche Bank Championship.

46-year-old Lee Janzen is four-under-par through 18 holes and former Masters Champion Zach Johnson is five-under-par after Round 1.

The fans and media have been more than eager to usher in the new class of “Young guns,” but these wily veterans may just have a few more big wins left in them.

Course Conditions

After a six-hour rain delay on Thursday, TPC River Highlands is playing about as soft as any course these guys will see all year.  

Six hours of rain would ordinarily mean that a course will play extremely long, but at 6,844 TPC River Highlands is not a long course to begin with.

This means that players will be able to attack very soft greens with short irons in their hands for at least the next two days.

It doesn’t matter where the tour places the pins, guys are going to go low, which we have already seen on Friday morning when Jim Renner opened with a 29 through his first nine holes (he started his day on the 10th hole at TPC River Highlands).

From here on in, it could be an all-out sprint to the Sunday finish line.

Sean O’Hair

Remember when Sean O’Hair was one of the most touted “Young Guns” on tour?

My how things can change in just two short years, and that folks is why we should be very weary of anointing every young player that has a great week as the game’s next big thing.

“Experts” were actually calling O’Hair the best player under the age of 30 less than two years ago.

But since last year’s PGA Championship, O’Hair has just one top-10 finish in 20 starts worldwide.

And things have been even more difficult for O’Hair over the past few months, where he has missed the cut in seven of his last nine events, parted ways with his swing coach Sean Foley, and nearly came to blows with Rory Sabbatini at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans.

O’Hair opened with a four-under-par round of 66 and is currently tied for 15th at the Travelers Championship.

It’s looking likely that O’Hair will make the cut, which is a much needed first step for the 28-year-old three-time PGA Tour winner.

But can he truly break out of his year-long slump this week at TPC River Highlands?

He’s going to have to keep his foot on the accelerator if he wants this to be his week.