This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.
BUTTERFIELD BERMUDA CHAMPIONSHIP
Purse: $6.5M
Winner's Share: $1.17M
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the Winner
Location: Southampton Parish, Bermuda
Course: Port Royal Golf Course
Yardage: 6,828
Par: 71
2022 champion: Seamus Power
Tournament Preview
With the fall season now vitally important -- it finalizes the top 125 in the FedExCup Standings, and thus which players have their PGA Tour cards for next season -- the tournaments have seen more robust fields than in past years. Somehow, the Butterfield Bermuda Championship didn't get the memo.
Only two of the top-50 in the world rankings and six of the top-100 have come to this tiny island some 650 miles off the coast of North Carolina. No. 31-ranked Lucas Glover and No. 45 Adam Scott head the 132-man contingent. The veteran Aussie still has plenty to play for. He sits 85th in the standings and, while his card is secure for next year, he's still trying to get in the so-called Next 10, 51st to 60th in the standings, which would ensure entry into the first two Signature Events of 2024.
Other players of note -- and we use that term loosely -- on hand this week include past champions Brendon Todd and Lucas Herbert, recent Tour winner Luke List, emerging Akshay Bhatia and youngsters Fred Biondi and Sam Bennett, both of whom are in on sponsor invites.
Tournament organizers couldn't even catch a break and get last year's champion to defend. Seamus Power has been sidelined with a hip injury since August.
In all, only two players positioned from 110th to 134th in the current standings are absent -- No. 121 Maverick McNealy, who just returned from a long injury absence last week (MC) and No. 127 Cameron Champ, who is already exempt through next season.
The Bermuda Tour stop began just four years ago as an alternate-field event the same week as the WGC-HSBC Champions in China. It was elevated to a full-points, stand-alone tournament on a temporary basis after the WGC event was canceled because of the pandemic. Last year, with the WGC tournament eliminated altogether, it became a full-points event. So maybe tournament organizers should be happy just to be here, regardless of the field.
Look at the bright side: There are "sweeping ocean views from nearly every hole," as the tournament website says. But they can't even catch a break there. The official Golf Course Superintendents sheet advises that Bermuda has been hit by six hurricanes/tropical storms in the past three months.
As far we know, the course is fine.
Port Royal is a public track designed by famed architect Robert Trent Jones in 1970. It is among the shortest courses the golfers will see all year. It was a real pushover in its debut in 2019, when Todd won at 24-under. It stiffened for two years when Brian Gay and then Herbert both won at 15-under, thanks to some windier conditions. Scores went the other way last year when Power won at 19-under. But no matter, the prevailing factor is that the course is very short. There are only three par-5s, two of which are under 520 yards. There are six par-4s under 400 yards, and two more just over 400. The signature hole is the 16th, and it's a long one as one of the two 235-yard par-3s. As the tournament website says, there is "nothing but the Atlantic Ocean between the tee and the pin." It's actually really cool, with both the tee box and green on cliffs. The green is thin, surrounded by bunkers and on a peninsula.
Since Port Royal is not long, what are its defenses? For one, doglegs -- eight of them. When you combine those doglegs with lots of cross bunkers -- 87 total across the course -- driver will not be a popular club this week. There's also water on seven hole. There are significant elevation changes. The TifEagle Bermudagrass greens are on the larger size, averaging around 6,000 square feet (because of course they use Bermudagrass greens in Bermuda). But the primary defense on an island course, as you can imagine, is wind, wind and more wind. And this year, the forecast says, well, here we go ...
High temperatures will be in the mid-70s all four days, with not much chance of rain but increasing as the tournament goes on. That's the same for the wind, which will increase to 17 mph by Sunday. That doesn't include gusts, and we can be sure wind will be the most prominent condition on the golfers' minds this week. There might be a slight lean toward the late/early wave, before the wind is forecast to pick up on Friday afternoon after a rare benign Thursday.
Key Stats to Winning at Port Royal
The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.
• Strokes Gained: Approach/Greens in Regulation
• Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green/Scrambling
• Putting Average/Strokes Gained: Putting
• Par 4 Scoring, 350-400 yards
• Birdie or Better Percentage/Birdie Average
Past Champions
2022 - Seamus Power
2021 - Lucas Herbert
2020 - Brian Gay
2019 - Brendon Todd
Champion's Profile
There is no ShotLink on the course, so we have no strokes-gained data. But it is still evident, because the course is so short, that driving has little impact on the final outcome. We've seen guys hit it far, guys hit it short, guys hit the fairway, guys miss the fairway -- and all have been able to contend. This clearly is a second-shot golf course. So we focus mostly on iron play and putting. And also, with eight short par-4s, the 350-400 efficiency stat. Last year, the top 4 finishers all ranked in the top-8 in putting. Power ranked fifth, and he was also ninth in greens in regulation. He was not among the longest drivers or the most accurate. In 2019, Todd was 10th in greens in regulation and tied for third in putting. A year later, Gay was 15th in GIR and fourth in putting. Herbert was only 53rd in GIR but also putted well, sixth overall. Herbert really is one of the worst iron players on Tour, and the fact that the wind was blowing so hard surely helped him because that made everyone else inaccurate. The over/under on the winning score on golfodds.com was set at 266.5 -- 17.5 under par.
DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS
Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap
Tier 1 Values
Adam Scott - $10,700 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: (+1600)
Scott did not make the playoffs, though he is still exempt through 2024 as a recent tournament winner. Still, he is not in the Signature Events and has shown little urgency in trying to qualify for them. With only one fall start so far, Scott has fallen to 85th in the FedExCup Standings. Of course, a win in a tournament in which he is among the best golfers in a very weak field would solve all that. Scott is ranked first in this field in par-4 350-400 over his past 24 rounds, and is second in both birdie or better and Strokes Gained: Putting.
Brendon Todd - $10,300 (+1800)
Any time there's a short course, we'll take some shares of Todd. He was runner-up at TPC Deere Run over the summer, seventh at Sedgefield and, in his only fall start to date, sixth at Silverado. The Bermuda champion from 2019 is ranked third on Tour for the season in SG: Around-the-Green and 16th in SG: Putting. Todd also is fifth in par-4 350-400 over his past 24 rounds and ranks No. 1 overall in our model.
Akshay Bhatia - $10,000 (+2200)
Putting surely is not Bhatia's strong suit, so this pick does not come without some risk. But there's no denying the 21-year-old manages to get things done regardless. He did miss two cuts after winning the Barracuda, something completely understandable if not expected in the aftermath of a life-altering moment. Since then, he's improved four straight tournaments, from 43rd to 35th to 21st to 10th last week in Mexico.
Lucas Glover - $9,500 (+2000)
This price and these odds sure are head scratchers. Glover is arguably the best golfer in the field -- he's certainly the highest ranked. Yet there are six guys with bigger prices on the DK board. Being one of the best ball strikers of his generation should warrant more consideration all by itself. But when you factor in Glover's recent putting metamorphosis, this seems a complete mis-pricing.
Tier 2 Values
Ben Griffin - $9,300 (+2500)
Griffin was the 54-hole leader here a year ago, only to shoot 1-over 72 on Sunday to disappointingly tumble into a tie for third. A similar fate happened to him last month at the Sanderson Farms, when he again kicked away a chance for his maiden PGA Tour win. Two sub-par tournaments followed, but Griffin appeared to shake off the cobwebs last week with a top-25 in Mexico. He's had too many close calls not to close the deal one of these days.
Alex Smalley - $8,900 (+2200)
Smalley has played here the past two years, finishing 12th and then 11th. His terrible putting probably prevented higher finishes. Smalley sits 58th in points right now, so he is playing to stay inside the Next 10. He's ranked 31st on the season in SG: Approach and 26th in GIR, so we like his chances to vie for a top-10 again this week.
Mark Hubbard - $8,800 (+2800)
Hubbard ranks third overall in our model, and it's because of his outstanding approach play. He ranks 13th on Tour for the season in SG: Approach. Hubbard sits 64th in the standings, meaning a good finish would move him into the Next 10 with just one more tournament before all positions are finalized.
Vince Whaley - $8,000 (+4500)
It may seem incongruous that a player sitting 184th in points and ranked 302nd in the world checks in at this price. In fact, it made us do a double take and look a little closer at Whaley. He finished seventh here two years ago and has been playing well during the fall season. He's had two top-25s in four starts and just missed a third. The DK oddsmakers agree with the DK fantasy-price guys, as Whaley sits at a mere 45-1 to win.
Tier 3 Values
C.T. Pan - $7,700 (+6000)
Pan sits on the one of the hottest seats on the PGA Tour right now -- and no, we're not talking about the Commissioner's chair. Pan is in 125th place in the standings. It's been a rough fall season for Pan, who withdrew from the Shriners with an injury, then returned at Mexico last week and missed the cut. But our model placed him in the top-10, thanks to a sound short game, great putting and strong results on the under-400-yard par-4s.
Justin Lower - $7,600 (+5500)
Lower finished 17th here two years ago and eighth last year. He's only an average approach player but one of the better putters on Tour. The thing is, he got that top-10 here last year without having a good week on the greens. Don't count on that happening again. Lower is coming off his best finish in almost five months, a tie for 23rd last week in Mexico.
Austin Smotherman - $7,200 (+7000)
Smotherman landed in the top-25 in our model thanks to strong greens-in-regulation numbers over his past 24 rounds, relative to this field, and also good birdie-or-better stats. He is coming off a tie for 23rd last week at Mexico, which coincidentally is where he finished here on the Bermuda leaderboard a year ago.
Kelly Kraft - $7,200 (+11000)
We almost didn't recognize Kraft up here in the $7,000s. In all four of his prior fall starts, he was deep in the $6,000s. We played him every time, and the first three resulted in top-25s before last week's far-back finish at Mexico -- but still a made cut. Afterward, Kraft knocked the Tiger Woods design, so that may have played a part in finishing in 71st place. Regardless of how you feel, it's probably not the best move to knock Woods in public. Thankfully for Kraft, Port Royal was not designed by Tiger.
Long-Shot Values
Jason Dufner - $6,800 (+15000)
It's time to turn back the clock and go with the 530th-ranked and 46-year-old Dufner. He opened the 2022-23 season abysmally, missing his first eight cuts. Since then, he's not been half-bad (though not exactly half-good either). Dufner has made six of his past eight cuts going back to the John Deere, and three of those were top-25s. He tied for 45th last week at Mexico. He remains a top-50 player in terms of greens in regulation. And we have to remember more than half the 132-man field will make the cut this week. That means lots of $6,000s.
Satoshi Kodaira - $6,800 (+20000)
Kodaira was the top $6,000 golfer in our model. That's likely because he tied for 12th at the ZOZO and for 30th at the fall-opening Fortinet. Kodaira is ranked 80th on Tour in SG: Approach and 64th in GIR. He's 160th in the standings, so at the very least he'd like to play his way inside the top-150 over the next two weeks.
Cody Gribble - $6,700 (+20000)
Gribble had been straddling the 150 line in the standings, just inside the 126-150 threshold until a missed cut last week knocked him back to 153rd. Gribble lands just inside the cut line in our model, thanks largely to good approach play over his past 24 rounds (relative to the field) as well as good numbers on short par-4s.
Andrew Landry - $6,300 (+40000)
Things get very dicey sub-$6,500. There's not a lot to like even though we know that a bunch of these guys will make the cut because, well, math. It's eye-opening to see a player once ranked 64th in the world now residing in the 700s. But that's Landry, a former winner on Tour. He remains a decent putter, certainly above average this season. Sitting at 207th in the standings, Landry would obviously like to move inside the top 200, if not more. This will be his Bermuda debut and we think it could be a good fit.
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