49 out of the world’s top 50 golfers are teeing it up at TPC River Highlands this week. The Travelers Championship is wrapping up the Signature Events for the 2026 PGA Tour regular season, so a lot is on the line. Scottie Scheffler is leading the charge after a U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills that definitely lived up to the hype.

Wyndham Clark enters riding on the back of his second title last week, all the while dealing with a pretty tough crowd on Sunday. Jack Nicklaus even called it one of the best short-game performances he’s ever seen. Now, most of the guys who finished near the top at Shinnecock are back in action at TPC River Highlands, and that continuity alone tells you how loaded this week’s field really is. Yet for all that depth, three of the most recognizable names on the PGA Tour will be sitting this one out, all for their own reasons.

Rory McIlroy

Rory McIlroy is skipping the Travelers Championship, and honestly, this isn’t a huge surprise if you’ve been following him this year. That’s now three Signature Events he will be missing this season, with the RBC Heritage and Cadillac Championship also on that list. He has just played five out of the eight events so far. McIlroy has made it pretty clear he likes to keep things balanced rather than just loading up his schedule.

“The luxury of being a PGA Tour player is we’re free to pick and choose our own schedule for the most part.”

McIlroy’s decision to sit out three Signature Events this season has a solid reason. After a T32 finish at last week’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, where things went south for him in the third round, and he ended up six-over, it looks like he is taking a little break. He’s not jumping straight back into another tournament. Instead, he’ll be back at the Genesis Scottish Open on July 9 to defend his title, and then he’s off to The Open Championship on July 16 to try and win it again.

Billy Horschel

Billy Horschel misses the event for the first time in 14 years. He had a rough patch in 2025, with a right hip injury sustained after the Zurich Classic in April that sidelined him for six months. He ended up missing three of the four majors, and by the time he got back, his ranking had taken a real hit. He slipped out of the top 25 in the world and dropped out of the top 50 in the FedExCup, the exact threshold that determines who gets an invitation to a Signature Event like this one.

Since coming back, Horschel’s been hanging in there but hasn’t really made a push for that top 50 spot. He grabbed a T13 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March and teamed up with Tom Hoge for a T6 at the Zurich Classic. Right now, he’s sitting at 90th in the FedExCup, so he’s still in the top 100, but not quite close enough for those Signature Events just yet.

Max Homa

Max Homa‘s absence stems from a slump in form that has not let up. Currently ranked 111th in the Official World Golf Ranking, he falls outside the qualifying line that would have guaranteed him a spot in this 72-man field. The same rules that kept Horschel out are working against Homa, too. This is the same person who was in the top five in the world not long ago.

Even without McIlroy, Horschel, and Homa, the Travelers Championship field is one of the strongest non-majors on the PGA Tour this year. The presence of the World No. 1 and the current U.S. Open champion underlines the event’s strength. Each of the three absentees has their own reason for missing, but the focus should be on the 72 players who have shown up. Their participation says more about the state of the sport than the names who are not here. This final Signature Event is defined by those competing, not those absent.