CROMWELL, Conn. — Tiger Woods is at home with his new baby. Phil Mickelson is home babying an injured wrist, and Angel Cabrera is back home in Argentina celebrating his U.S. Open win.

Despite the absence of those names, there is a feeling of optimism as the first Travelers Championship prepared to tee off this morning.

Dropped from the PGA Tour schedule a little more than a year ago, the Hartford tournament now has a four-year commitment from a local title sponsor (Travelers), a bigger purse ($6 million, up from $4.4 million a year ago), and a spot on the tour during the same week every year, giving top golfers an incentive to show up and earn points toward the tour championship.

"There is a sense of stability that just hasn't been here in the last few years," tournament director Nathan Grube said.

The event, which began in 1952 as the Insurance City Open and later became the Greater Hartford Open, was on the verge of extinction when Canon dropped out as title sponsor after 2002.

A group of local sponsors kept the tournament going the next year, and then Buick stepped in as a stopgap. After the company announced that 2006 would be its final year, the tournament was scratched from the 2007 schedule.

When 84 Lumber decided not to continue sponsorship of its tour event in Western Pennsylvania, Travelers stepped into the slot and brought the Hartford tournament back.

Since then, officials have been working on upgrades at the TPC at River Highlands designed to lure the tour's top golfers — everything from a $5 million, 22-acre practice facility that is under construction to free laundry service for caddies. The tournament even sent a charter jet to the U.S. Open to ferry golfers and their families to the tournament.