TPC River Highlands

TPC River Highlands is a private club in Cromwell, Connecticut, south of Hartford, on high ground above the Connecticut River. It belongs to the TPC Network operated by the PGA TOUR and is best known as the home of the Travelers Championship, the state’s largest professional sporting event, played here every June. The address is One Golf Club Road, Cromwell.

The club is much older than its name. It was founded in 1928 as Middletown Golf Club, on a course by Robert J. Ross and Maurice Kearney, and became Edgewood Country Club in 1934, according to encyclopedic entries. The PGA TOUR took it over in the early 1980s: Pete Dye redesigned it in 1982, and the tournament then known as the Greater Hartford Open moved here in 1984, from Wethersfield Country Club, a few miles to the north, when the course was called TPC of Connecticut. A second rebuild followed at the end of the decade under Bobby Weed, with tour players Howard Twitty and Roger Maltbie as consultants, and the course took its current name in 1991. The club’s scorecard today credits the course design to Bobby Weed, with Twitty and Maltbie as player consultants.

The course is a par 70 with a par 35 on each nine. On the club’s 2025 scorecard, it measures 6,880 yards from the Gold tees, with a course rating of 74.1 and a slope of 138. The Blue tees play 6,455 yards (72.1 and 130), the Green tees 6,039 yards (69.9 and 129), and the White tees 5,738 yards, rated 68.7 and 127 for men and 74.7 and 130 for women. The Red tees measure 4,845 yards, rated 69.0 and 118 for women, and a Forward set plays 3,226 yards. The card also recommends a handicap range for each set, from 0 to 4 on the Gold tees to 15 and above on the White. Encyclopedic entries list the tournament course at 6,841 or 6,844 yards, with a rating of 72.7 and a slope of 131 that no longer match the club’s card.

What it asks of you

By tour standards, River Highlands is short. At under 6,900 yards, it does not ask for extreme length, and the professionals regularly go very low here: Jim Furyk shot 58 in the final round of the 2016 Travelers Championship, the first 58 in PGA TOUR history, and a plaque beside the 18th green marks the round. For a club golfer, that record is misleading. A slope of 138 from the Gold tees says that the course is demanding, and the difficulty comes from precision rather than distance.

The ground is the first reason. The course sits on a ridge above the river, and several holes play sharply uphill or downhill, which complicates club selection and leaves uneven lies. Reviewers describe the greens as small and the approaches as tight. A guest who hits greens in regulation from the right side of the fairway will score; one who misses on the wrong side will spend the round chipping from awkward angles.

The second reason is the variety of the par 4s. The card lists 12 of them, from 302 to 483 yards from the Gold tees. The short ones tempt an aggressive play that is not always wise; the long ones, like the 4th at 483 yards and the 10th at 462, ask for two very good shots. There are only two par 5s, the 6th at 587 yards and the 13th at 523, and four par 3s ranging from 158 to 229 yards.

The third reason is water, which reviewers place mainly on the back nine and which is central to the finish. The last four holes are where the Travelers is usually decided, and they are also where a good club round can come undone.

The front nine

The course opens with a par 4 of 434 yards from the Gold tees, followed by the 2nd, a short par 4 of 341 yards, rated the second-easiest hole on the front nine by stroke index, which one well-known course guide nonetheless counts among the best holes on the property. The 3rd is a par 4 of 440 yards, and the 4th, at 483 yards, is the longest par 4 on the course and the hardest hole on the card for men.

The 5th is the longest par 3, 229 yards from the Gold tees, a hole that specialist writers also praise. The 6th, a par 5 of 587 yards, is the longest hole and ranks third by stroke index for men. The 7th is a par 4 of 443 yards, the 8th a par 3 of 202, and the 9th a par 4 of 398 yards, for a front nine of 3,557 yards.

The back nine

The 10th is a par 4 of 462 yards, and the 11th, at 158 yards, is the shortest hole on the card and the easiest by stroke index. The 12th is a par 4 of 411 yards before the 13th, the second of the par 5s, at 523 yards and the second-hardest hole for men. The 14th is a par 4 of 421 yards.

The 15th is the hole that television made famous. It is a par 4 of 302 yards from the Gold tees on the scorecard (the club’s featured-hole page gives 296), with water on the left and sand on the right. The club says that anything from a 2 to a 6 is possible there. The 16th is a par 3 of 171 yards that asks for a mid-iron over water to a sloped green with difficult hole locations. The 17th, a par 4 of 431 yards, runs alongside a lake that covers the whole right side, with a difficult fairway bunker on the left and an approach that must carry water all the way; the club notes that it draws the largest crowds of the tournament because of its effect on the outcome. The 18th, a par 4 of 444 yards, returns to a green that becomes an amphitheater during tournament week; the club calls it a hole where a good drive leaves a mid or short iron and a real birdie chance. The back nine totals 3,323 yards.

What tournaments have shown

The tournament itself goes back to 1952, when it was founded as the Insurance City Open by the Hartford Jaycees. It became the Greater Hartford Open in 1967, the Buick Championship in 2004 and the Travelers Championship in 2007, when Travelers became title sponsor. It is now one of the PGA TOUR’s Signature Events, with an elite field and an elevated purse, and it is played in late June, usually the week after the U.S. Open.

Bubba Watson won it three times at River Highlands, in 2010, 2015 and 2018. Recent champions include Dustin Johnson in 2020, Xander Schauffele in 2022, Keegan Bradley in 2023 and 2025, and Scottie Scheffler in 2024. The 2026 edition, played from June 25 to 28, ended on the Monday: rain suspended the final round, and Viktor Hovland beat Scheffler on the first playoff hole the next morning, the first Monday finish since Travelers became the sponsor. Before Furyk’s 58, the course record was a 60, set in 2011 by Patrick Cantlay.

What golfers say

This is a private club, so the public record comes mostly from tournament coverage, course rankings and reviews by guests who played with members. The points below summarize what recurs. These are other people’s opinions, not ours: nobody from Panxis has played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• The closing stretch from the 15th to the 17th is described as one of the most exciting sequences in tour golf, and the drivable 15th in particular as enormous fun to play.
• Specialist writers rate the bones of the course highly, citing the short 2nd, the long par 3 5th, the par 5 13th and the 15th as outstanding holes.
• The back nine, with its elevation changes and water, is regularly called the stronger half.
• Conditioning and the practice facilities are praised as being at tour level.
• Regional rankings have repeatedly placed it among the best private courses in Connecticut, and tour players ranked it in a national magazine poll.

What comes up against

• The front nine is described by some reviewers as ordinary compared with the finish.
• Some dislike the small mounds along the fairways and find the small greens occasionally frustrating.
• Access is closed: without a member, a guest has almost no way to play.

How to play it

TPC River Highlands is a private membership club, and its website presents membership as the way to enjoy the course year-round. There are no public tee times. Guests play with members, under the club’s guest rules; members of other TPC Network clubs may have access through the network’s reciprocal privileges, on terms set by the clubs.

The rules for guests are those of a traditional private club. Shirts must be tucked in at all times in the clubhouse, on the course and on the practice facility, shorts should be Bermuda length, hats are worn straight and forward, and jeans are not allowed on the course. Metal spikes are banned. The club sets a pace of play of 4 hours and 10 minutes for 18 holes, monitored by course advisors, and asks players not to drive carts onto the properties of the homes that border the course when looking for a stray ball.

The other route onto the course is an event. The club hosts golf outings, corporate meetings, social events and weddings, and a company or a charity outing is one of the few ways to play without a member. During tournament week, the course is open to spectators rather than players.

The facilities

The clubhouse is a New England-style building of 40,000 square feet, with several dining options and event rooms. The club also has a practice facility with a putting green and a short-game area, instruction, a junior golf program, a swimming pool and tennis courts. The greens and fairways are a mix of bentgrass and Poa annua, according to encyclopedic entries.

Getting there and when to go

Cromwell is south of Hartford, along the Connecticut River, and the club is reached from Golf Club Road. The New England season runs roughly from spring to late fall; the course is at its busiest around the Travelers Championship in late June, when it is closed to regular play for the tournament.

Green fees

TPC River Highlands is a private club and does not sell public tee times. Guest conditions are set by the club. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location; the club’s website for the status, the facilities, the guest rules and the featured holes; the club’s 2025 scorecard for the design credit, the hole-by-hole lengths, pars, stroke indexes, ratings and slopes; encyclopedic entries for the founding, the successive names, the redesigns, the elevation, the grasses and the course records; the Travelers Championship’s own history for the tournament’s names and Bubba Watson’s wins; and tournament coverage for the 2026 playoff. Where sources disagree, we say so and follow the club’s scorecard.

The opinion section summarizes tournament coverage, course rankings, specialist hole-by-hole guides and guest reviews read in September 2026. We report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations. Nobody from Panxis has played or visited this course, and this page is no substitute for a round.

The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. This page contains no commercial link and earns us no commission. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our United States directory:

• Keney Park Golf Course — 12 mi
• Fishers Island Club — 43 mi
• Trump National Golf Club Westchester — 70 mi
• Village Club of Sands Point — 76 mi