Bermuda Championship’s sudden-death playoff had no loser | News

Austin Smotherman waited 100 PGA Tour events to get his first win. He needed just 57 holes to grab his second, beating Seamus Power on the third hole of a sudden-death playoff on Monday at the weather-shortened Butterfield Bermuda Championship.

The win adds another year onto Smotherman’s full-time PGA Tour exempt status. His win at the Bank of Utah Championship gave him job security and a spot in the PGA Tour’s Championship Series when it begins in 2028. This win extends that through 2029. The victory in windy Bermuda also moved him up to No. 51 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings, putting him in position to earn starts at the first two Signature Events of 2027.

Even Bermuda’s 40-mph gusts couldn’t extinguish the fall’s hottest player.

“We knew we were doing a lot of good stuff and just wanted to go play golf,” Smotherman said of his attitude entering the FedEx Cup Fall after failing to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs. “We were excited for the fall season. We had our best FedEx Cup finish ever and the fall we felt was just going to be bonus golf and do things like this, and to have it come true and live this out now not once but twice in that short time frame is, I mean, I couldn’t have drawn it up. It’s a fairy tale, really.”

Smotherman’s triumph in Utah was a victory 10 years in the making. He worked his way up from PGA Tour America (then called PGA Tour Latinoamerica) to the Korn Ferry Tour and then finally earned full-time PGA Tour status for the 2021-2022 PGA Tour season. Smotherman played three consecutive seasons on the PGA Tour before losing his card after finishing 169th in the FedEx Cup standings in 2024. But he bounced back, winning twice on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2025 to earn his card again. Smotherman played solid golf in his return to the PGA Tour in 2026, and he almost won the Cognizant Classic in March before finally kicking down the door in start No. 100 in Utah.

Two weeks later, another win arrived, and with it proof of what Smotherman had long believed — something that can be invaluable as he looks to keep climbing the PGA Tour ladder.

“It can literally happen at any time,” Smotherman said. “We say it every week, everybody out here’s so good, anybody can win on any given week. That’s what makes our sport so great. There’s Scottie Schefflers of the world that know how to win a lot more frequently every single year, but I think I’m getting a little bit of a taste of what they feel, a top player like that as far as just so much freedom every single week and feeling like what you’re doing, you’re getting the validation with the results, but also just the immense trust you have in the process that you’ve devised. I’ve been a professional now for 10 years, and I feel like I’ve put a lot of notches in my belt with different skills and things that help pay off at the end of the week.”

But as Smotherman explained the feeling of another win and everything that comes with it, Seamus Power wasn’t far away. But he didn’t look like a man who came up short. Yes, a sloppy bogey on the third playoff hole kept him from claiming his second Bermuda title. But Power didn’t leave Port Royal Golf Course a loser. Perhaps there were none in Bermuda on Monday.

Power won the 2022 Butterfield Bermuda Championship and finished 41st in the FedEx Cup in 2023. He backed that up with another top-60 season in 2024. But as his two-year exemption ran out, his game slipped. In 2025, Power had just two top-10s and six top-25s. He posted a T8 at the Valspar and then a T7 at the fall-ending RSM Classic, but in between that were missed cuts and finishes outside the top 30. He finished 117th in the FedEx Fall and lost his full-time exemption. Power still played a normal schedule in 2026 out of the 111-125 category. He said the only tournament he didn’t get into outside of the Signature Events was the WM Phoenix Open.

Still, it was a season of uncertainty. One of hoping to play where you want but not knowing if that was possible. With a second-place finish in Bermuda, Power vaulted to 68th in the FedEx Fall standings, all but securing a full-time card in 2027.

Asked earlier in the week about his goals on a blustery track where he’d previously found success, Power wasn’t eyeing a trophy. The goal was just to ensure 2027 was a smoother ride than 2026. A win would take care of that, but it wasn’t the only elixir for what he was forced to navigate in 2026.

“I played a full schedule, but it was the unknowns and not knowing where I was going to get in and when I was going to get in was the tough part,” Power said after his second round on Friday. “So for me, trying to get back into that top 100, get yourself back to full status, and then I just feel like you’re in a better, more comfortable spot starting off in January. So like that’s going to be the big goal. Obviously, always trying to get a win, but this time of year, I mean, the win kind of takes care of both. So that top 100 is really going to be a big thing.”

More than 48 hours later, after the final round was scrapped because of unfavorable weather, Power shook Smotherman’s hand after falling just shy of his third career PGA Tour win. While the leaderboard showed Smotherman’s name above the rest of the field, the other leaderboard everyone is eyeing this time of year showed Power had made the biggest jump of the week, rising 35 spots to check the most important box of the fall.

He left a runner-up but with the freedom to exhale, relax and refocus on the next task at hand, knowing his 2027 picture will be much clearer.

“It gets me back to full status again, which was frustrating this year playing — not really knowing when you’re in, when you’re not in,” Power said Sunday. “That’s nice. That was a big goal for the fall 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 [Signature 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.”