The final signature event of the PGA Tour’s 2026 season kicked off Thursday at TPC River Highlands with a man knocking on the door of his first victory continuing to persist. Eric Cole jumped out to the early lead at the Travelers Championship as he opened the affair with a stunning 7-under 63 to hold a one-stroke edge over Nico Echavarria, Ben Griffin, Matt Fitzpatrick and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
“Obviously, it’s everybody’s goal [to win],” Cole said after the round. “I’ve now played a decent amount on Tour, and winning is something I want to do. I just am trying to get myself in that spot where have I more opportunities and then hopefully just the more I do that, the more likely it is that I’ll win.”
Cole took advantage of the calm conditions in the morning, while Fitzpatrick found his groove with a new driver in hand. Cracking the face of his old driver at the Truist Championship, the Englishman has been hard at work trying to find a new one to put in the bag. His driving numbers have dipped over the last month, but he has landed on a new Ping model, and the old results are starting to show.
“I have a different driver this week,” Fitzpatrick said. “That’s obviously new. Just getting comfortable with that, and I had felt like I practiced well these first three days as well and just managed to find something that I felt was working a bit better.”
Fitzpatrick missed just one fairway on Thursday, and he was able to put seven circles onto his scorecard. He is now well-positioned to push for what would be his fourth PGA Tour victory of the season. That would put him well out in front of the man who has done more winning than anyone else these last few years: Scheffler.
Being honest with the status of his game following the U.S. Open, Scheffler stated the difficulty of coming from behind to win tournaments. Noting that slow starts have hindered his chances, the 20-time winner started guns blazing Thursday alongside his good friend and U.S. Open runner-up Sam Burns.
Scheffler was perfect inside 10 feet in a first round that featured six birdies and zero dropped shots. His place on the leaderboard marks just the fourth time this season he is inside the top 10 after Round 1, putting the rest of the field on notice of what may be to come the rest of the way.
“When the scoring is lower, it can be harder and harder to play catch-up,” Scheffler said. “I feel like, when you play a golf course where even par is going to be the winning score at the end of the week, there’s always those days where somebody figures it out.
“When you look at the low rounds from last week’s U.S. Open, there’s still a few of ’em, or at least one guy seems to figure it out each day, so you feel like you can catch up a little bit easier. Sometimes, here, you get so far behind you can only shoot so low on some of these golf courses, so it’s important to keep pace.”
Leader
1. Eric Cole (-7): A blossoming spring is turning into a sweltering summer for Cole. The 38-year-old has five top-15 finishes in his last seven starts, including the playoff loss to Russell Henley at the Charles Schwab Challenge and subsequent top-10 finish at the Memorial Tournament. This run has not only gotten him into the field at signature events but into the top 40 of the FedEx Cup standings. With those changes coming in 2028, Cole’s status in 2027 could mean more than originally thought.
On Thursday, he was brilliant with five birdies and an eagle on the par-5 13th that came from off the green. He had his chances to take it even deeper than 63, but he’ll sleep well tonight knowing he is in a perfect position yet again in a big-time golf tournament.
“I wish I knew the answer and I had some secret to give out,” Cole said of his recent success. “But, no, I think it was just a lot of the hard work that I put in earlier in the year and while it didn’t necessarily yield any results, like I just kind of had faith that I was working on the right stuff and that eventually some results would come from it. So, yeah, I’m going to go with just it’s a longer process than maybe I would have hoped for.”
Contenders
T2. Scottie Scheffler, Nico Echavarria, Ben Griffin, Matt Fitzpatrick, Kristoffer Reitan, Bud Cauley (-6)
T8. Patrick Cantlay, Brandt Snedeker, Aaron Rai, Viktor Hovland, Justin Rose, Corey Conners (-5)
Last year’s Travelers saw the playing captain controversy reach its apex with Keegan Bradley’s victory. This year, it won’t, but it’s fun to dream as a pot stirrer. Already a winner this season in Myrtle Beach, Snedeker started his week in impressive fashion thanks to a first-round 65. This came after the Presidents Cup captain held a team dinner on Tuesday
“It’s fun to be out here competing against ’em,” Snedeker said. “I feel like I’m playing good golf right now, so I know I can compete with ’em; it’s just a matter of putting four rounds together. But it’s fun seeing all the guys, being around ’em. We had a dinner Tuesday night for a Presidents Cup perspective team, and it’s fun to be around them and hang out a little bit.
“The more time you spend around these guys, A, the more you learn, and B, the more impressed you are by their games, but C, the more competitive you get. I still want to be — as I told ’em, I still want to beat everybody in this room. So it’s fun when I have days like today when I can go give ’em some grief.”
Home cookin’
Ben James started the week by saying he did not meet Tiger Woods, who was on site to unveil the new-look PGA Tour in 2028, because he was at home sleeping. The graduate from PGA Tour University started his professional career in impressive fashion at the Canadian Open, where he held the 36-hole lead. James, a four-time All-American at Virginia, then finished inside the top 25 at the U.S. Open. The skillset is undeniable (the iron play is legit), and early returns suggest James is here to stay for a long time coming as he opened his home event with a 68.
“It’s been my, I don’t know, ninth round out here,” James said. “I don’t know, I’m just kind of riding the wave, I guess. But I guess logistically it’s a little different because I do some of the work, and I got to coordinate it, versus I just get told what to do, so that’s different. But it’s just about playing good golf at the end of the day.”
2026 Travelers updated odds, picks
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook
- Scottie Scheffler: 2-1
- Matt Fitzpatrick: 9-1
- Ben Grffin: 15-1
- Patrick Cantlay: 16-1
- Eric Cole: 18-1
- Sam Burns: 18-1
- Bud Cauley: 19-1
- Justin Rose: 21-1
- Viktor Hovland: 21-1
Not going to give up on Fleetwood (26-1) quite yet. The Englishman turned in 2 over and came home in 5 under to keep himself in this tournament. Fleetwood lost more than three strokes on the greens across his first nine holes, and with the flip of the putter came the flip of the score. The putter has been much better the last month, and that run should continue as he moves his way up this leaderboard across the next few rounds.