Golf: Reigning U.S. Open, PGA champ Brooks Koepka commits to play Travelers Championship

The Travelers Championship is five months away — 146 days if you ask tournament director Nathan Grube on the spot. Already, the tournament has its top marquee attraction.

Brooks Koepka, the world’s No. 2 ranked player and three-time major champion, has committed to play in this year’s event come June. Koepka, 28, is the reigning two-time U.S. Open champion and last year’s PGA Championship winner.

“We are thrilled,” Grube said. “We (the tournament) have had a relationship with Brooks. … I think guys are looking at their schedules more than ever earlier (in the season).”

Koepka will be returning to TPC River Highlands in Cromwell for the fourth time. The tournament runs from June 20-23. He tied for 19th place last year after coming off his second Open win at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. Two months later, he survived a challenge from Tiger Woods to win the PGA.

A year ago, he was just beginning his four-month sabbatical from the PGA Tour while recuperating from a left wrist injury. He came into last year’s tournament ranked 21st in the world.

Koepka, who has five wins all told on the PGA Tour, has not teed it up on the tour since winning the CJ Cup at Nine Bridges in October. He is not playing in the Farmers Insurance Open this week, but did tie for ninth this past weekend at the European Tour’s Abu Dhabi Championship in United Arab Emirates.

“When he finished play, we got word (from Koepka’s representatives that he was planning to play Travelers),” Grube said.

Koepka’s announcement is now the earliest ever for a Travelers commit. Rory McIlroy was ranked eighth in the world when he committed on Jan. 31, 2018, and was third when he committed in February 2017.

Travelers is the two-time recipient of the tour’s “Players Choice” award, voted on by the tour members.

“That is at the core of who we are. If we do that well, we can do everything else,” Grube said. “We have tried to build a tournament the players are comfortable with. They know what they get when come here. We make it as easy of an event to attend. We make it easy that in January, players say, ‘Hey, I can go to Travelers.’”

Koepka has finished inside the top 24 in all of his three previous appearances at the Travelers, his best a tie for ninth in 2016.

Grube and Andy Bessette, the executive vice president and chief administrative officer for Travelers, will be making their first recruiting trip of the calendar year next week at the Genesis Open in Los Angeles.

Grube also noted the new clubhouse is on schedule to be ready for this year’s tournament,. He said the old clubhouse was torn down within 10 days of last year’s tournament.

“The PGA Tour is running the project on a very aggressive timeline,” Grube said. “It has a roof, walls, the earth work is done and we’ve paved some areas. We are now working on the interior (portion of the clubhouse).”

Grube also said all of the hospitality venues and structures will “look totally different” for this year’s event.

[email protected]; @nhrJoeMorelli