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 stated 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 stated. “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 stated. “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.”Leader1. 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 stated 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.”
Eric Cole leads @TravelersChamp after an opening-round 63, a year after spending Saturday night in the hospital and withdrawing before the final round due to illness.
Cole suffers from Addison’s Disease, which limits his body from producing sufficient hormones when under stress.… pic.twitter.com/s8YBcWQ5d9
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 25, 2026
