2023 Travelers: Winners, Losers at TPC River Highlands

Coming fresh out of the 2023 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands, let’s take a look at the true winners and losers of this season’s 13th designated event, and the last of the regular season.

2023 Travelers Championship Winners

Ludvig Aberg

If Ludvig Aberg is a new name to you, you can be forgiven as he is currently ranked 568th in the OWGR and only turned professional this month. However, Ludvig finished top of the 2023 PGA Tour University ranking to become the first player to earn a PGA Tour Card through this method.

Ludvig’s finishes of T24 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and T61 at the Valspar Championship this year officially earned him a cool $0 due to his amateur status. In his two PGA Tour events since turning professional, Ludvig finished T25 at the RBC Canadian Open and T24 at this weekend’s Travelers Championship.

In just two professional events the Scandinavian has now earned $231,850. The former number one in the World Amateur Golf Ranking has firmly established himself as one of the most promising young stars in his short career in the limelight.

Ludvig, the two-time Arnold Palmer Cup winner, is yet to make an appearance at a major, but will be setting his sights on earning a 2023 Ryder Cup wild card pick for Team Europe.

Zac Blair

Not many players can claim to have hit themselves in the head with a putter and been disqualified for continuing to use a non-conforming club, but you better believe Zac Blair is one of them.

The now 32-year-old Blair turned professional in 2014 and has played 164 events since. It is fair to say that the journeyman has not had the best success on the PGA Tour having only made the cut in just over half of those events (93).

With only 8 top-10s and 4 top-5s, Blair has earned a relatively modest $6,311,367 since first joining the PGA Tour in 2015; especially in comparison to Scottie Scheffler’s earnings of $14,046,910 in last year’s season alone.

With a weekend of 68-62, Blair recorded his first and only runner-up position and earned himself a huge $1,780,000.

Chez Reavie

Another journeyman with 388 PGA Tour events to his name, Reavie finished T4 at 19-under to take home $841,666.66 and earn his 16th career top-5.

Despite career earnings of $21,340,894 Reavie likes to keep it casual and was seen this weekend at a local Cheesecake Factory watching his own third-round highlights.

2023 Travelers Championship Losers

Jon Rahm

Rahm started the season strong by earning 4 PGA Tour wins, including the 2023 Masters. Since clinching his second major title Rahm has only had one top-10 finish; a solo 2nd place at the Mexico Open where he was the defending champion.

This week, Rahm shot 67-71 to finish on Friday at 2-under-par and miss his first cut of the season; leaving him without a pay cheque for the first time since the Fortinet Championship in September 2021. A disappointing end to a great run.

Rahm was wayward off the tee and only managed to hit 14 of the 28 fairways with the driver. Despite this, he managed to hit an impressive 73% of greens in regulation.

Joel Dahmen

Dahmen rose to popularity in the Netflix documentary ‘Full Swing’ with his charismatic personality and unique outlook on how to succeed on the PGA Tour.

Dahmen has played 171 events on the PGA Tour and clocked his first victory at the 2021 Corales Puntacana. Unfortunately, this weekend was one to forget for Dahmen as he scored 9-over par and missed the 4-under cut by a mile.

J.T. Poston

Poston started the tournament strongly with a 4-under 66. In many tournaments, this would put Poston well within the action and on the leaderboard.

However, this week’s 6,852 yard course made it an absolute birdie-fest where nothing but constant 2’s and 3’s on the card keep you in contention (see Keegan Bradley’s winning 27 birdies over the 72 holes).

Poston went out on Friday to bogey his last hole and shoot a 1-over 71. He missed the cut by a shot.