Travelers Championship 2017: 5 groups to watch in Rounds 1 & 2

5. Luke Donald, David Lingmerth, Nick Watney

Round 1: 10th tee, 12:30 p.m.

Round 2: 1st tee, 7:30 a.m.

The story of Luke Donald fascinates me. In my eyes, he’s the new David Duval in the sense that nobody can quite figure out what happened. Okay, perhaps Donald hasn’t had quite the dropoff that Duval had — he is still the 82nd-ranked player in the world — but he also never won the major championship that Duval did, something Donald seemed destined for in the early part of this decade.

Donald admitted that he almost quit professional golf early last year due to his decline. In a bit of role reversal, he was more or less “fired” by his caddie John McLaren in October 2015 and simply had lost confidence in himself. But he pressed on, started seeing a sports psychologist and seems to be having fun on the golf course again, even if the results aren’t quite what he wants them to be just yet. He’s missed the cut in three of his last four events but a second-place finish at the RBC Heritage had to do good things for him and a good performance at the Travelers Championship would do wonders for him. Is this the week he finds the winner’s circle again?

David Lingmerth could be one to really keep an eye on this week. His last performance here wasn’t that spectacular — he tied for 64th in 2015 — but he’s made five consecutive cuts and has only finished lower than tied for 21st once in that span, a T-72 at THE PLAYERS. Outside of that, he finished tied for 18th at the Wells Fargo, tied for 12th at the Dean & DeLuca, tied for 15th at the Memorial (a tournament he won in 2015) and tied for 21st this past weekend at the U.S. Open. He’s playing solid golf right now and is usually a joy to watch.

Nick Watney got as high as 10th in the world rankings after his win at the AT&T National in 2011 but the 36-year-old hasn’t won in nearly five years on the PGA TOUR, his last win coming at The Barclays in 2012, and fell to 531st in the world after missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open. He did put together a nice run in the six following that event, earning three T-14 finishes and a T-28 in his next four events to jump back into the top 300. He hasn’t played great as of late, finishing no higher than a T-40 in his last six events while missing two cuts. He could use a good week as well.