The PGA Tour continues its run in paradise with this week's Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course. As a New Englander who is now dealing with sunsets at 4:00 p.m., sun-drenched golf courses in destination vacation spots are always going to be nice to see.
This is the seventh playing of the tournament at Port Royal, one of the shorter courses in the PGA Tour's regular rotation at just over 6,800 yards. Accuracy and short game are at a premium here, as the high winds hitting the course off the ocean are going to really put an emphasis on the players' short game and bogey avoidance skills. Guys this week will see a short course and immediately look to attack, so any bogey is going to be a big-time killer to scorecards.
Since this tournament does not get the full ShotLink data treatment, much like last week in Mexico, we are flying a little blind this week. However, we are coming off another win last week, thanks to the man, the myth, and the legend that is Ben Griffin, so the research department is feeling good on where we stand. Let's pick up another one on what appears to be a tougher setup.
Honorable Mentions: Eric Cole, Pierceson Coody, Rico Hoey, Mark Hubbard, Takumi Kanaya
9. Seamus Power
A past champion of this event, Seamus Power is looking to maintain his Tour card by once again stealing a victory to maintain his two-year exemption. He hasn't found the best form recently, failing to find a top-25 finish since April.
Something about the course agrees with his eye, as he has three straight top-25 finishes at this event, so if there's ever a time for Power to make a vault towards the top 100, it's now.
8. Vince Whaley
Vince Whaley has slowly and surely raised his floor over the last few seasons, and I think we could start seeing some big things out of the 30-year-old soon. What has really helped Whaley recently is his scrambling and bogey avoidance.
He currently ranks fourth on Tour in bogey avoidance, only making bogey or worse about 12 percent of the time. With a windy forecast coming up, having this skill is definitely going to come in handy, especially for a man who has three straight top-10 finishes in Bermuda.
7. Patrick Rodgers
His T6 last week in Mexico was a bit of a "welcome back from the dead" moment for Rodgers, who hadn't registered a top-25 finish since the Wyndham. His return couldn't have come at a better time, as we returrn to a course that the Stanford product has loved in recent years.
In his last three starts in Bermuda, Rodgers has finished fourth, tied for third, and tied for ninth. Still searching for his first win on Tour, Rodgers could finally start to live up to his wunderkind expectations when he was tying Tiger's records at Stanford.
6. Alex Smalley
Unfortunately, Alex Smalley was not able to follow up his T4 at the Baycurrent with anything of note, missing the cut in Utah in his last start. He's lost his game a bit since his strong stretch through The Players earlier this season, but he's coming back to a course that he likes to hopefully find his mojo again.
Smalley has not finished worse than T30 in four starts in Bermuda, and it seems like one of the few courses where he can find his short game. He doesn't really need to worry about FedEx Cup points this week, so maybe he'll be able to play freely.
5. Matt Kuchar
Yeah, I can't believe he's here, either. At this point in his career, Kuchar doesn't have the distance to keep up with a lot of the players on Tour, but his ball-striking and accuracy are still elite. He's also on a run of three straight top-20 finishes, including a T11 last week.
With this field being as weird as it is, along with the potential for the winds to be whipping this week, the numbers could be adding up for Old Man Kuchar to steal a victory. Just think of his win at the RBC Heritage in 2014, and you'll see why I like him this week.
4. Chad Ramey
The way that Golf Channel's coverage showcased Chad Ramey's push for cracking the top 100 of the FedEx Cup with his birdie barrage on Sunday was great, and really made watching what was kind of a nothing tournament actually interesting.
Ramey easily played well enough last week to win, and his accuracy off the tee should set him up for a lot of success at Port Royal. There are plenty of guys below Ramey that will look to jump him into safety, so he needs to keep up his play to stave off the chasers.
3. Victor Perez
In his last three starts, Victor Perez has been performing pretty decently. He was the first man off the podium at the 2024 Olympics, and his irons and putter have been clicking recently, leading to a T11 at the Sanderson Farms and a T21 last week in Cabo.
The Frenchman is a golfer who tends to rattle off a few strong finishes like this in bunches, and based on his play, it feels like he is in the middle of another one of these runs. Maybe this is the week where his ceiling rises high enough to take the trophy.
2. Justin Lower
Justin Lower has to be kicking himself with his weekend performance in Cabo, because he was primed to make a run alongside guys like Garrick Higgo and Chad Ramey before back-to-back 70s led to a T31 finish.
Luckily, Lower gets to return to possibly his favorite course of the season in Port Royal. In four starts, the 36-year-old has finished T17-T8-T20-T5 in Bermuda. A man still searching for his first win on Tour, it feels right for Lower to find it this week.
1. Thorbjorn Olesen
I think everyone forgets just how good of a golfer Thorbjorn Olesen is. The 2018 European Ryder Cupper has won eight times on the DP World Tour, finished T6 at The Masters all the way back in 2013 (shoutout the flagstick on 15 killing Tiger's chances), and has a huge gap between his DataGolf ranking (43) and his OWGR ranking (100).
He has a great all-around game and has been playing extremely well in the last few weeks, finishing no worse than T14 in his last four starts.