'A lot of positives' but no third PGA Tour win for Seamus Power
Séamus Power
Séamus Power was taking the positives after he secured his full card but missed a golden opportunity to notch his third PGA Tour win when he lost to Austin Smotherman in a sudden-death play-off for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
High winds at Port Royal Golf Course on Sunday reduced the tournament to 54 holes, leaving Power and Smotherman to settle the title on the 179-yard par-3 16th.
Smotherman got up and down from greenside rough at the first time of asking, as Power missed a 21-footer for the win.
The second time around it was Power who was forced to scramble for par after he found greenside sand but bravely made a six-footer for par after Smotherman two-putted from 75 feet,
The hole was re-cut at 152 yards for their third trip down the iconic, cliff-top 17th, but after Smotherman, who had the honour, fired his tee shot to 14 feet, Power missed the green in the left rough.
The West Waterford man (39) snagged his chip and faced 17 feet for par but couldn’t convert.
Smotherman knocked his birdie putt two feet past, but after Power cleaned up for bogey, the Californian brushed in his putt for victory and back-to-back PGA Tour wins following his victory in the Bank of Utah Championship two weeks ago.
The American earned a two-year exemption through the end of 2028, securing Championship Series status, a cheque for $1,080,000, and a jump to 52nd in the FedEx Cup Fall standings.
Power won $654,000 and jumped from 103rd to 68th, effectively securing the silver lining of full PGA Tour status next year for the top 100.
“Had a chance this morning, wasn't able to do it, which is disappointing, but overall great week, can't complain too much,” Power said. “Hit some good shots in the playoff, just didn't quite judge the wind right, but that's golf sometimes.
“I'll move onwards. Yeah, a lot of positives from the week.”
Power was playing with conditional status this year, which meant he couldn’t plan his schedule in advance.
But he’s now guaranteed starts in all the full-field non-signature events next season and still has four events to finish between 51st and 60th, which would secure starts in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational at Riviera.
“Well, it gets me back to like full status again, which was frustrating this year playing -- not really knowing when you're in, when you're not in,” said Power, who jumped 40 places to 156th in the OWGR. “That's nice.
“That was a big goal for the fall was to get a top-100 locked up. Now I'll have a look at the list and see if I can maybe move into that top-60 or 70, whatever that cutoff is for the first couple of elevated events.
“But really big strides for me forward in the fall, three events, two top-10s, almost winning here, so a lot of good stuff.”
As for Smotherman, he was thrilled to become the first player since Camilo Villegas in 2008 to win his first two events in back-to-back starts.
“Stop it, stop it. That's so cool. I'm still shaking; that putt was not easy,” Smotherman said.
“A lot of people were asking me coming into this week, what are you doing? You just won; you locked up a bunch of stuff.
“But as I said, we're doing a lot of good things, and we want to come to a beautiful spot that I have some good history at playing here. Port Royal, Bermuda, everything, it's easy to enjoy this week and that's what our goal was.
“I’m sure everybody wished we had an outright leader overnight Saturday, and unfortunately things did not pan out for yesterday's 18 holes.
“Not complaining how things went down, but still getting to a playoff with Seamus, another two-time winner and he's won in the playoff in the past. And getting to play this hole over and over and over again, you really don't want to be on the tee box all day, but just enough times is what it took.”
