A par-3 play-off settles a washed-out week
Austin Smotherman has won again. The American beat Ireland’s Seamus Power on the third extra hole of a Monday play-off at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, in his very next start after taking the Bank of Utah Championship. The two had finished tied at 16 under after three rounds, because weather wiped out Sunday’s final round and left the event at 54 holes. It was the first PGA Tour event in two years to end at that length, since the 2024 Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
The play-off was played over a par 3, and it took three attempts to separate them. Smotherman had been a model of consistency at Port Royal, with rounds of 65, 66 and 66. Power, chasing a third PGA Tour title, had opened with a 64 in round two and a 67 in round three. He also owns a play-off victory over JT Poston at the 2021 ISCO Championship, so the experience was not one-sided.
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From 99 starts without a win to two in a row
The scale of the turnaround is the story. Smotherman went winless in his first 99 PGA Tour starts. At 32 he now has two titles in consecutive starts, and this one was also his first PGA Tour play-off. The result lifts him from 80th to 51st in the FedEx Cup standings.
The bigger prize is security. Two wins earn him exemptions into the Tour’s Championship Series events through the 2029 season, which covers the first two years of the Tour’s new competitive model. For a player who spent years worrying about his card, that is a long runway.
Power left waiting again
Power ends the week second at 16 under. He had a chance to add a third Tour trophy to the one he won in 2021, and the final hole of the play-off went the other way.
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