Austin Smotherman won the Butterfield Bermuda Championship on Monday, October 26, beating Ireland’s Seamus Power on the third hole of a sudden-death playoff at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton after high winds forced the PGA Tour to cut the event to 54 holes.
The final round was never played. With gusts above 40 mph sweeping Port Royal on Sunday, the Tour first moved up and then delayed tee times before cancelling play for the day. Shortly after 5 p.m. it declared the results final through 54 holes, citing an unfavourable forecast for Monday, which left Smotherman and Power tied at 16-under 197 and set up a Monday-morning playoff.
All three extra holes were played on the par-3 16th, Port Royal’s signature hole above the South Shore. Power missed a 20-foot birdie putt to win on the first, then saved par from a bunker on the second. With the hole moved to the front of the green for the third, Smotherman found the putting surface with an 8-iron while Power missed left into deep rough and failed to hole his par putt, leaving Smotherman two putts for the title. “It feels pretty special to be crowned champion here in Bermuda,” Smotherman said afterwards.
The win was Smotherman’s second in as many starts, coming three weeks after his first PGA Tour title at the Bank of Utah Championship, which he won in his 100th career start. It was worth $1.08 million, earns him a place in the 2027 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and lifts him to No. 51 in the FedExCup standings, enough to secure starts in next season’s first two Signature Events. He is the first player to win a PGA Tour event over 54 holes because of weather since Wyndham Clark at the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Power, the 2022 champion, was bidding to become the first two-time winner in the tournament’s eight-year history. He arrived ranked No. 103 in the FedExCup, outside the top 100 who keep full status, and the runner-up finish moves him to No. 68 and locks up his 2027 PGA Tour card.
Taylor Moore and Canadians Corey Conners and Ben Silverman shared third at 14 under, with Tom Hoge, Chris Kirk, Chan Kim, Danny Walker and Chandler Blanchet tied for sixth at 13 under.
Featured image: The Mid Ocean Club golf course in Tucker’s Town, Bermuda (not Port Royal, the tournament venue). Photo by Sean Salamon, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.