2020 Bermuda Championship: Preview, picks to win at Port Royal Golf Club
The Bermuda Championship plays host to not only players but fans as well this week with The Masters just around the corner.
The Bermuda Championship will host a weakened PGA Tour field this week at Port Royal Golf Club as golf’s biggest names prepare for this year’s Masters in just over two weeks’ time. This is the second time the event has been part of the PGA Tour schedule. The field this week will return to the beautiful Port Royal Golf Club in Southampton, Bermuda.
Last year’s tournament was played as an alternate field event, alongside the WGC-HSBC Champions, and was won by Brendon Todd at 24 under par. Todd would go on to have a fantastic 2019-20 season and would surely credit this event as the tournament that kick-started his fantastic year.
The event this week will take center stage for the PGA Tour with the HSBC Champions no longer part of the 2020-21 schedule due to the re-worked tour schedule. Fans will be welcomed back for the first time since March this week and 500 FedEx Cup points will be awarded to the winner of this weeks Bermuda Championship.
The Course
Port Royal Golf Club is a Robert Trent Jones designed course that was first established in 1970 with later renovations taking place prior to the previously hosted Grand Slam of Golf back in 2009. The Par 71 will play out this week at around 6,800 yards and features a vast amount of strategically placed fairway bunkers, numerous elevation changes, coastline views and large Bermuda greens.
Presented with three par 5’s and six par 4’s playing at between 350-400 yards players are treated to an immense amount of scoring opportunities and the annual edition of this event was further evidence of this tournament turning into a birdie fest with ten players posting a score of 15 under par or greater.
Early forecasts for this week indicate that scoring might be a tad more difficult with wind gusts of 15mph or greater expected over the weekend. With the multiple bunkers across various points of the course and high winds expected I’ll be targeting golfers that excel in the wind, have a fantastic around the green game and can still score with their wedge game and putters.
Favorites and Picks to win at the Bermuda Championship
This week I’ll be looking at a player’s recent form and strokes gained statistics with limited course history available to us. If you would like more information and detail on what strokes gained statistics are be sure to check out Bryan Mears excellent article over on The Action Network.
The Action Network is a great resource for all golf betting including information on some of the best bookmakers available locally to you. The odds used in this article can be found online at popular betting sites.
For an overview of which Golfers come into this event producing the best form of late, you should check out Power Rankings at the Bermuda Championship.
One player who has been in excellent form over the past few months is Will Zalatoris +1150 and he opens things up at the top of the odds board coming into this week on the back of three top-10 finishes in his last four starts. Last year’s winner and defending champion Brendon Todd +1400 is a close second favorite upon opening odds.
With last year’s event producing such high scoring and in a weaker field than that of recent weeks I’m hesitant to take anyone near the top of the board and instead will start this week’s card with Henrik Stenson +3500. The 54th ranked player in the world comes into this week ninth in my stats model for the week and is traditionally one of the better players in windy conditions.
The Swedish golfer missed the cut in his previous event but that was mainly due to his putter as he lost over four strokes on the greens at the Sanderson Farms. Prior to that, he picked up a top 25 finish at the Corales Punta Cana late last month.
Stenson has had success at coastal courses in the past including wins at Royal Troon in Scotland and last year’s Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. In a season that has already seen veterans of the game like Sergio Garcia and Stewart Cink pick up victories, it would be fitting for Henrik to follow suit this week at the Bermuda Championship.
Wesley Bryan +5000 will be the next addition to this week’s card. Bryan was last seen at the Sanderson Farms on his way to a 12th place finish, an event in which he gained over three strokes on approach and over five on the greens showing that he can produce a hot putter when needed.
Wesley comes into this event inside the top 30 of my stats model for the week and rates out as fourth-best in the field with his wedge play from the 100-150 yard range, he has also made the cut in four of his previous five starts on tour.
Bryan’s one PGA win came on another coastal course at Harbour Town back in 2017 and I could see similar success this week at Port Royal Golf Club.
I’ll add another selection this week in a similar range with Danny Willett +5500, The former Masters Champion will no doubt be preparing for this year’s event at Augusta in two weeks’ time and will want to go into it in great form. It had been a miserable stretch for Danny until he produced a 32nd last time out at the BMW PGA Championship in England.
Willett is another that has traditionally played well in windy conditions and he rates out inside the top 25 with his wedge play from 100-150 yards over the previous 24 rounds. In addition, Danny has historically rated out positively gaining strokes from around the green.
Should Willett have found some type of form in his previous event he can compete this week in the windy conditions.
Lastly, I’ll take a shot this week with Tyler McCumber +7000. Tyler produced a runner-up finish at a coastal course just several weeks ago at the Corales Punta Cana and he ranks inside the top 25 in strokes gained ball striking coming into this event.
McCumber is one of the best birdie makers in the field over his previous three events and should that continue at the Bermuda Championship this week then he could make for a surprise contender.
Best of luck with all of your outright bets at this week’s Bermuda Championship!