Stakes are high as PGA Tour heads to Bermuda

 

[November 09, 2023]  The FedEx Cup Fall has just two events left before the PGA Tour heads into its winter break.

Stakes will be high for many in the field at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship this week, beginning Thursday in Southampton, Bermuda.

While Nos. 1-50 in the FedEx Cup playoffs were locked in for the 2024 season after the summer, many others are trying to finish Nos. 51-125 in the standings of the newly imagined fall series in order to maintain their tour cards and qualify for The Players Championship next year. Nos. 126-150 will have Korn Ferry Tour status and conditional PGA Tour status in 2024.

For those who finish the fall in the 51st through 60th spots, they'll be exempt into two signature events this winter: the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational. Nick Hardy (No. 55 entering the week), Ben Griffin (No. 56), Alex Smalley (No. 58) and Luke List (No. 61) are playing this week with that goal in view.

Griffin, a PGA Tour rookie, still is hunting for his first career victory after multiple heartbreaks in 2022-23. Not only did he miss a putt to win the Sanderson Farms Championship and lose in a playoff last month, Griffin also led during the final round in Bermuda last November.

He then had a disastrous sequence at Nos. 12-16 at Port Royal Golf Course that cost him six strokes en route to a tie for third place.

"I had this kind of marked on my schedule after I didn't get it done last year that I wanted some redemption to come back and give it another chance," Griffin said.

Port Royal is a par-71 track just 6,828 yards long, among the shortest the pros play each year. Past winners like Brendon Todd, whose 24-under 260 in 2019 stands as the tournament scoring record, are not known for distance off the tee. (Last year's champion, Seamus Power of Ireland, is not in the field this week.)

"The layout of the golf course, the holes, I mean, certainly this golf course fits my game and fits my areas that I'm good at," Griffin said. "This course kind of tailors towards those, a lot of wedges."

The highest-ranked player in the field is Australian veteran Adam Scott (No. 45 in the Official World Golf Ranking). He comes to Bermuda just No. 85 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings and trying to vault into the top 60.

Local fans will be watching 15-year-old Oliver Betschart. The Bermudian, who won last year's Port Royal Golf Club Championship, played his way into the field via a 54-hole local qualifier at his home course last month.

"For Port Royal, it's all in the wind," Betschart said. "It's a tricky course, but when that wind picks up it just becomes so much more difficult. I think that's what the players out here are going to have to look for now and focus on wind."

Betschart will be the youngest player to compete at a PGA Tour event since 2014. He played a practice round with PGA Tour vets Stewart Cink and Ben Crane, and he doesn't appear to be overwhelmed by being shoulder to shoulder with the pros.

"Just got to focus on myself and playing against the course, not against my competitors really," he said. "... Playing my game, doing everything that I can."

--Field Level Media

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