HARTFORD — They have cast their lines in the water. Now all they have to do is see who takes the bait. Nathan Grube and Andy Bessette have decided to go fishing. Fishing for golfers. But these aren't a couple of little bluegills that Grube, the tournament director for the Travelers Championship, and Bessette, executive vice president and chief administrative officer of St. Paul Travelers, are going after.

They're going after the big fish.

Tiger. Phil. Vijay. Ernie. Monty. Sergio.

What do they have on their hooks? Try a million bucks to the winner for starters. And if that isn't enticing enough, there's a brand new state-of-the-art practice facility and driving range in the works. Still not tempting? How about one less amateur to have to schmooze during the pro-am?

For the past 54 years, the state's PGA Tour event has been a nice, little place to play. From it's initial days as the Insurance City Open to the Greater Hartford Open to when Sammy Davis Jr. and Canon had their names attached to it, and then when it became the Buick Championship, the fans have always came out to watch. And occasionally, some of the top players have actually come and played.

Sam Snead won here. So did Arnie. And Gene "the Machine" Littler. Billy Casper. Lee Trevino. Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson have all held the champion's trophy.

But overall, the fields were average at best. And in the past couple of years, it became apparent that average fields weren't going to be good

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enough. People stopped going to the tournament.

Something had to be done.

Welcome to a new era. A new beginning.

The Travelers, who took over the title sponsor role in April — after Buick decided to drive away after three years — and bumped the purse from $4.4 million to $5.5 million has opened its wallet again. The insurance company decided to throw another half-million dollars into the pot for next June's event at the TPC at River Highlands. That pushed the total purse to a whopping $6 million, with $1.08 million going right into the winner's bank account.

Like Jay Fishman, the president and CEO of St. Paul Travelers, said at the press conference to announce these changes, "Money talks."

And the Travelers is speaking. Very loudly.

"That purse ... you look at the PGA Tour purses for the past year, a million dollars is a lot of money for a winner," Bessette said.

"I think the money part of it signals so much more to the players," TPC general manager Bill Whaley said. "I think they say, 'Yeah, the money's great, but they must have a great sponsor and they have to be doing a lot of things.' It signals so many changes. They know that this is for real."

And that was part of the reason the Travelers anted up a ton more cash. It wasn't so long ago, great field or mediocre field, the golf course was always packed to the gills. It was common for 50,000 to 70,000 to come out on a Thursday or Friday and for upwards of 90,000 to 100,000 to show up on Saturday or Sunday. But those figures have fallen dramatically.

So Grube went out and talked to players. Guys like 2006 champ J.J. Henry of Fairfield, Davis Love III, 2005 champ Brad Faxon, Kenny Perry and Billy Andrade.

Grube asked what the players liked about the tournament.

What they didn't like.

What they could do better.

"We asked them what we needed to do and now we're working on all those things to eliminate reasons for guys not to come," Grube said. "There's not one thing you can do, there's not one silver bullet to get the top guys, it's probably a dozen things."

One of which was the practice facility. The current driving range area at the TPC could only hold maybe 30 golfers at one time. There is only one practice putting green and two small practice sand traps. According to Grube, players actually shied away from playing here because the practice facilities were so disappointing. But by the summer of 2008, a brand-new practice facility will be in place.

Another solution is to eliminate an amateur from the pro-am day, reducing the groups from fivesomes to foursomes.

'We're one of the few events that's doing that, and it's doing a hit to our bottom line in revenue, but it was important to the players. We didn't want them out on the course for six hours before they teed off the next day," Grube said. "We weren't in a leadership position with the purse, we had to get there. There wasn't just one thing, but we've addressed 10 things that were important to the players."

The Travelers speaks. The Travelers listens.

"It's important that the players know that. When they come here next summer and see all the changes going on to the driving range and the course, the word is going to get around to the rest of the players on Tour," Bessette said. "Those guys at the Travelers Championship listen to us. All the things we're doing, they're going to remember that."

Contact Chris Elsberry at celsberry@ctpost.com