FedEx Cup Fall rolls on with another visit to a tropical locale. The fringes of the PGA Tour fight to secure their PGA Tour card at the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship at the Port Royal Golf Course. As always, here is your early deep dive on the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship and a preview of how to bet.
2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship Preview
The Field
It’s been tough sledding in FedEx Cup Fall to try and attract solid names to the tournaments. But the Butterfield Bermuda Championship might take the cake for the worst field of all.
Highlighting the field is…**drumroll please**… 43-year-old Adam Scott. Adam Scott hasn’t won a tournament since 2020 and currently sits 85th in the FedEx Cup standings. However, he stands a great opportunity should he win this tournament against lackluster competition to sneak into the Top 60 of the final FedEx Cup standings. That will lock him into the first elevated event of 2024 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Other notables in the field include Akshay Bhatia, Lucas Glover, Ben Griffin, Mackenzie Hughes, Luke List, Alex Noren, Taylor Pendrith, and Brendon Todd.
For the full field, click here.
The Golf Course
The Port Royal Golf Course was founded in 1965. Due to a dispute between the existing property owners and developers, the course was not completed until 1969. After shifting the layout of the property to accommodate a stubborn farmer, famed golf course architect Robert Trent Jones carved out a wonderful 18-hole layout along the western shores of Bermuda.
As far as the individual holes go, it’s nothing spectacular. The golf course has a fairly basic routing structure. It hasn’t been modernized much from the original Robert Trent Jones design. Everything is out in front of the player this week. The greens have wavy features to them, but nothing too difficult. Overall, this isn’t a golf course that will confuse or befuddle the PGA Tour pros.
But the property itself is what makes this golf course memorable. Situated on the west end of Bermuda, it has absolutely breathtaking views of the Atlantic Ocean. And the entire piece has dramatic elevation changes. The clubhouse sits on top of a hill, with the golf course sprawling downhill in all directions. It’s about a 100-foot drop from the clubhouse to the Par 3 16th green, which is the low point of the golf course. Very few holes play flat tee-to-green. Players must adjust their club selections based on uphill and downhill shots.
Port Royal Golf Course is a Par 71 and runs about 6,850 yards on the scorecard. That’s very short for PGA Tour standards. However, the golf course is susceptible to heavy gale winds off the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a short golf course by design. If the winds are up, this can present a stern test. Players will have to contend with gusty crosswinds on several holes. But if the wind is down, then the PGA Tour pros will eat the golf course up.
Port Royal Golf Course is bermudagrass tee-to-green. The greens will run around 11 on the stimpmeter, which is slower than average for PGA Tour standards. As mentioned previously, the threat of significant wind necessitates keeping the greens on the slow side. Otherwise, the golf course is virtually unplayable.
Betting Strategies
Once again, there is no ShotLink and Strokes Gained history to draw upon to try and handicap the golf course and the tournament. And second, there are very few players in this field that have any semblance of reliability. Sure, we could absolutely nail the handicap and get every key stat we need correct. But do we trust that the 25th-best iron player in the field will absolutely live up to the billing? Hell no!
So what are we to do? Let’s break down what we know about the four Bermuda Championships at Port Royal Golf Course:
1. As mentioned earlier, Port Royal Golf Course is wall-to-wall bermuda. The greens are TifEagle Bermuda. This is the same strain of bermuda as the following golf courses played on the PGA Tour:
- Plantation Course @ Kapalua
- Albany GC
- Sea Island
- PGA National
- Bay Hill
- Concession Golf Club
Unfortunately, there are very few players in the field who have played either Kapalua, Concession, or Albany GC. However, there are plenty of players who have experience with TifEagle Bermuda at Sea Island, PGA National, and Bay Hill.
2. Here are the driving accuracy statistics from each of the four Butterfield Bermuda Championships. This is a preview of what to expect off-the-tee at the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship:
- 2022: 55.9%
- 2021: 55.9%
- 2020: 48.7%
- 2019: 54.3%
It’s incredibly difficult to hit fairways at Port Royal. Part of this is due to the narrow fairways of the golf course. But a bigger part of this is the crosswinds off the Atlantic pushing balls off-line. That makes it really difficult to find the short grass off the tee.
Brendon Todd and Brian Gay, winners of the 2019 and 2020 Bermuda Championships, were among the leaders in driving accuracy on the week. Lucas Herbert and Seamus Power, however, were well below average in fairways hit for the week. That suggests that one should target extremes off the tee this week. If you want to target a shorter hitter, they better hit a lot of fairways. Or target a bomber.
3. Here are the green in regulation rates from each of the four Butterfield Bermuda Championships. This is a preview of what to expect with approach shots at the 2023 Bermuda Championship:
- 2022: 68.5%
- 2021: 64.1%
- 2020: 61.1%
- 2019: 66.7%
Higher rates of hitting approach shots out of the rough typically yield lower greens in regulation rates. However, the fact that in 2019 and 2021, the rates were only slightly below the PGA Tour average indicates that the rough at Port Royal isn’t all that penal to hit out of.
It also should be noted that the 2020 GIR% rate is much lower than in 2019, 2021, and 2022 due to weather conditions. It was windy for multiple rounds that year. In 2019 and 2022, the weather conditions were pretty calm all week. And in 2021, only the final round got gnarly weather conditions. The weather forecast will determine how the field strikes the ball this week.
Overall, the players who generally hit the most greens in regulation in the tournament tended to do quite well on the leaderboard. In terms of the winners, Brendon Todd was 11th in GIR% on the week in 2019. Brian Gay was T15 on the week when he won in 2020. Seamus Power hit 75% of his greens, good for 9th best on the week.
Lucas Herbert, however, only hit 62.5% of his greens in regulation, which was well below the tournament average. Combined with the fact that he didn’t hit a ton of fairways either, it seems like he scrambled and putt his way to a win in 2021. This was the case, as he was T6 in putts per round on the week.
Brendon Todd and Brian Gay, however, seem like they did it the traditional way of lots of fairways, lots of greens, and limiting bogeys. Seamus hit a ton of greens but not many fairways. But they all hit their fair share of putts, too. Seamus Power was T5 in putts/round in 2022. Brian Gay was T4 in putts/round in 2020. And Brendon Todd was T3 in 2019. Regardless of how well one hits it with the irons, you definitely have to putt to do well at the Bermuda Championship.
4. Here are estimated proximity ranges for Port Royal per round. This analysis was done assuming no wind and measuring approximate tee shot locations and distances on each hole. The analysis also took into consideration elevation changes tee-to-green, with one club adjustment per 15 feet of elevation changes. Per the weather forecast as of Sunday evening, only Friday seems like there will be significant wind. As such, these ranges should be fairly accurate on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday:
- <100 Yards: 5 (27.8%)
- 100-125 Yards: 3 (16.7%)
- 125-150 Yards: 3 (16.7%)
- 150-175 Yards: 1 (5.6%)
- 175-200 Yards: 0 (0.0%)
- 200-225 Yards 3 ( 16.7%)
- 225+ Yards: 3 (16.7%)
Wind can absolutely change this distribution. The presence of wind also changes which clubs a PGA Tour player would normally hit into a green. But given the wind doesn’t look like it is a big factor in a tournament, it’s fair to say gamblers should primarily focus on proximity and scoring metrics on approach shots less than 150 yards. It should account for approximately 60% of a player’s shots in the entire tournament.
The remainder should come from over 200 yards in the form of the Par 5’s and a few longer Par 3’s. 150-200 Yards is essentially a dead zone.
5. Here’s the predictive skill set chart courtesy of DataGolf of what types of players play the best at Port Royal Golf Course:
Similar to the discussion above, there’s little correlation between how far one hits it off the tee and success at Port Royal. For every Lucas Herbert, Thomas Detry, or Taylor Pendrith that has done well at the golf course, there’s Brendon Todd and Brian Gay, who’ve performed just as well.
There’s also a slightly higher correlation between players who do well around the greens that have success at Port Royal. But it’s not a significant correlation. And around the green play is one of the weaker predictive skillsets to handicap in golf.
Based on this predictive skillset chart, here are golf courses that DataGolf lists as comparable ones (limited to those featured on the PGA Tour in the last three years):
- TPC Southwind (FedEx St. Jude)
- Albany GC (Hero World Challenge)
- TPC Craig Ranch (AT&T Byron Nelson
- La Quinta CC (AmEx Rotation Course)
- St. George’s G&CC (2022 RBC Canadian Open)
- Detroit Golf Club (Rocket Mortgage Classic)
- Pebble Beach Golf Links
- Sea Island GC (RSM Classic
- Silverado Resort & Spa (Fortinet Championship)
- Southern Hills CC (2022 PGA Championship)
These golf courses are good reference points to try and identify horses-for-courses.
As such, these are the types of players one should look to target this week. This list should preview what a solid 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship betting card will look like:
1. Either a bomber or a super accurate short knocker. Anything in between is unfavorable.
2. Great putter, particularly on bermuda
3. Proficient with shorter irons (<150 yards) and longer Par 3’s.
4. Decent scramblers. That’s been a commonality amongst the recent winners of the Bermuda Championship.
Follow these tips in this preview, and you should put together a solid betting card and DFS lineup for the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
