Golf

How to watch the Travelers Championship live online, TV schedule, radio and more

Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and Jason Day will all get plenty of camera time as they headline a stacked Travelers Championship.

by Brendan Porath

Jun 22, 2017, 11:00 AM UTC

Photo by Michael Cohen/Getty Images

Before any balls were in the air, the Travelers Championship has already caught a hot streak. The annual stop in Hartford may have drawn its strongest field of the modern era. It was an unbelievable string of announcements. First came Rory McIlroy, announcing he’d play the Travelers for the first time way back at the end of February. It was a huge pre-Masters boost for the tournament, which has aggressively tried to carve out an identity in the week following the U.S. Open.

Next came Jason Day, who committed to come to Hartford for the third time but the first in a few years. Day was originally scheduled to pay in 2015, but his vertigo bout that nearly forced a withdrawal from the U.S. Open while near the lead caused him to back out of the Travelers the following week. And last came Jordan Spieth, the winner of that 2015 U.S. Open, committing to play the Travelers just a couple weeks ago. Spieth said he was trying to figure out his post-U.S. Open schedule, and he’d heard “universal” good things from fellow players about the Travelers.

So here we are, with the little stop the week after the “toughest test in golf” boasting all three of last year’s “big three” in its field. That’s an obsolete moniker but they’re still three of the top four, maybe five, players in the game right now and all major champions. It’s been fascinating to watch the Travelers build this field, which also includes old standy Bubba Watson, Justin Thomas, Patrick Reed, Jim Furyk, Brandt Snedeker, and others.

How’d the Travelers draw all these stars to Hartford?

The Memorial Tournament Presented By Nationwide - Round One

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

On a crowded 47-event schedule, PGA Tour events have to work to draw the top names in the field. Here’s how the Travelers is doing it better than most.

The star power obviously makes this one of the better watches of the season on the PGA Tour. We just don’t get all three of these guys in non-WGCs or non-majors that often. And aside from the headliners, we’re also now hitting the dog days where some of the fringe talents really have to get moving on their FedExCup points with limited starts left before the end of the season. So there are reasons to watch for the causal fans and the die-hards who like tracking some of the more unheralded talents on the deepest tour in the world.

Golf Channel will have the coverage on Thursday, slotting in their usual three-hour window in the afternoon. Spieth is out in that half of the draw in the first round, alongside Snedeker and Wes Bryan. Bubba will also be out in the afternoon and a focus of the coverage. In the morning, Rory, Day, Thomas and others will be on the PGA Tour Live stream coverage.

Here are all your media coverage options for the opening round in Connecticut: