Weekly Recap: Power Play

You don't often see the top-ranked golfer in a field win the tournament. There are just too many good golfers and too much variance when there are 100-plus or even 156 players competing. But the top-ranked golfer at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship was Seamus Power and, don't you know it, he won the tournament.

The Irishman shot 19-under-par to win by a stroke over up-and-coming Belgian Thomas Detry at Port Royal Golf Course in Bermuda, giving the week a full-fledged international flavor.

Power deserves all credit for winning, but he did get a bit of help. More than a bit, actually. He began the final round tied with unheralded Ben Griffin and trailed the youngster by two strokes early on the back nine. At that point, Griffin completely collapsed, bogeying four straight holes before putting the icing on the cake with an agonizing double bogey.

But as they say, a win is a win and years from now people will look back at the 2022 Bermuda Championship and see only that Power won, not how he won.

Power was ranked No. 48 in the world and, in a very weak field of 132, there were only four other golfers even in the top 100. So the task was not as daunting as, say, when the world No. 1 faces every other star player in a major. It's closer to what happened at the Portugal Masters, as you'll see below.

At age 35, Power continues to write the second act of his career. After not even reaching the PGA Tour until he was nearly 30 year old, he is now ranked a career-high 32nd in the world.

Power had won once before, at the 2021 Barbasol Championship, and his two victories are hardly earth-shattering. But earlier this year he finished T5 at the WGC-Match Play, T9 at the PGA Championship and T12 at the U.S. Open. After the Open in June, he didn't notch another top-20 until now.

There's that variance we were talking about.

Being the top-ranked golfer in the field and being the top-ranked golfer are two completely different things. World No. 1 Rory McIlroy may not win every tournament he enters, but he's been a top-5 machine. A golfer ranked 48th or even 32nd, well, they are much more prone to off weeks.

When he's on, Power is one of the better greens-in-regulation guys around, as well as a very good putter. That's a pretty good combination to have if you play professional golf.

Power certainly was the best golfer in Bermuda and beating 131 others -- even these 131 -- is no small task. It's just hard to envision Power taking a much bigger step into the next echelon of golfers. But in a given week, even in far better fields, he has shown the ability to compete and contend.

To that end, European Ryder Cup Captain Luke Donald, who missed the Bermuda cut, got a first-hand look at an Irishman and a Belgian finishing 1-2, and also an Englishman winning this week's DP World Tour event.

Power -- and Detry, for that matter -- are well positioned to claim spots on the Ryder Cup team next September in Italy. With all the big-name LIV defections, many more spots than expected will be up for grabs on the European team. 

Who knows? Power might be a good Ryder Cupper. Although the pressure ratchets up exponentially in that setting, Power did well at the WGC-Match Play, outlasting Patrick Cantlay and Sungjae Im in his group, then beating possible teammate Tyrrell Hatton before losing to then-No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in the quarterfinals.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Thomas Detry
Detry wasn't the highest-ranked guy in the field; there were five guys ahead of him. But the Belgian in his rookie season on the PGA Tour was No. 1 on the DraftKings board. DraftKings knew what they were talking about, as Detry finished second. He has not missed a cut so far this fall season, and he previously had tied for fifth, 12th and ninth. Detry is up to No. 85 in the world, still a little shy of his career best of 71st.

Ben Griffin
The golf world discovered Griffin back in August, when the virtual unknown finished fourth at the Wyndham. His story resonated: He had quit golf to enter the mortgage business and then tried to return about a year ago. Fast forward to Sunday, when Griffin shared the 54-hole leader with Power. He was leading early on the back-nine and then the wheels fell off. Griffin bogeyed 12 ... and 13 ... and 14 ... and 15 ... before doubling 16. Somehow, he fell only into a three-way tie for third. Griffin is only 26 and this was only the eighth career PGA Tour start for the recent Korn Ferry grad. He actually handled things quite well in post-round interviews, leading us to think he can overcome this on-course catastrophe.

Patrick Rodgers
Rodgers was a decorated golfer coming out of Stanford almost a decade ago, but he's never lived up to expectations. Now age 30 and outside the top-200 in the world, Rodgers tied for third, one of the best finishes of his 223-tournament PGA Tour career. He does have three runners-up, but none since 2018, so this really came out of nowhere, even considering this field. It's a nice story for a veteran player, but we can't view it as anything more than one good week, albeit one that could go a long way in delivering Rodgers his card for next season.

Kevin Yu
The 24-year-old from Arizona State via Chinese Taipei had played only 13 PGA Tour events before Bermuda. He had one top-10, at last year's alternate-field Puerto Rico Open. But as a Korn Ferry grad with a top-20 already this season, Yu looked like he could develop into a good player. He tied for third this week, and suddenly we have to view him in a new light. 

Denny McCarthy
McCarthy, the No. 3 guy in the field in terms of world ranking, tied for sixth. This was his 16th career top-10 in 140 starts. He's still looking for his first win, despite all the "McCarthy Chalk Weeks" we've seen on Golf Twitter. For a guy who putts as well as McCarthy does, that win should've happened already. He has never been higher than 77th in the world rankings, which is where he sits today.
 
Justin Lower
Lower was one of the top guys in the field, at least going by DraftKings prices, and he backed it up. by tying for eighth. That follows a T4 at the Fortinet and a T20 at the Shriners. Not great fields, so temper expectations, but Lower should move into the top-200 OWGR for the first time in the new rankings.

Byeong Hun An
An lost his PGA Tour card and had to go to the Korn Ferry Tour, but he played his way back to the top circuit for this season. He tied for 17th at Bermuda, continuing a decent start to his season. An has made four of five cuts beginning with a tie for fourth at the season-opening Fortinet. We'll know a lot more about him once the fields get tougher in 2023.

Akshay Bhatia
Just about anytime Bhatia gets into a PGA Tour field, which isn't often, he generates a bit of news. Still only 20, the junior amateur star famously bypassed college to give it a go as a pro. It has not gone well. He just failed again to get his Tour card and began the week in the high 400s OWGR. At Bermuda, he tied for 17th in his first Tour start since the 2021 Wyndham. This was his 30th Tour start overall and fifth top-25. Yes, Bhatia won a Korn Ferry event in January (in the Bahamas), but he's not much closer to reaching his goal of being a PGA Tour member.

Charley Hoffman
Hoffman has either gotten bad or old or a mix of both over the past couple of years, as he fell out of the top-250 in the world. He had missed 10 of 20 cuts in 2022 entering the week, so a tie for 29th was much-needed for him. At 45, Hoffman still has a ways to go before the Champions Tour beckons.

Will Gordon
Golf can be brutal game. Gordon shot 68-66-66 to sit inside the top-10 entering Sunday. He then shot 75 to plummet to a tie for 34th and a great week suddenly looks very average.

Arjun Atwal
The longtime PGA Tour player is counting the days till he's eligible for the Champions Tour in March.  He doesn't play much, and almost exclusively in lesser fields. Atwal made the best of it this week, making the cut (T49) for just the second time since last year here.

S.H. Kim
We were high on Kim this week after coming off some very good results so far this fall. But it was a big miss, as Kim missed the cut by two strokes. No one knows how good the 24-year-old Korean will be, but safe to say there will be some inconsistencies. Kim is in the field again this coming week at Mayakoba, but it's a far stronger field and just a made cut would be a good result.

Adrian Meronk
The second-highest-ranked golfer in the field at No. 61, Meronk missed the cut by three strokes. It was just the fourth PGA Tour event for the 29-year-old from Poland. Bu in some ways it was his first. The other three were the Scottish Open and Open Championship this past summer and last year's U.S. Open. Meronk got in on one of the two sponsor invites designated for foreign players.

DP World Tour

The Portugal Masters had a field far weaker than Bermuda, if that's possible. There were only two golfers in the top 100 of the OWGR: No. 67 Robert MacIntyre and No. 93 Victor Perez. Interestingly, the next guy in the rankings, No. 105 Jordan Smith, won it. The Englishman shot a whopping 30-under-par, which included two 62s and a 63. It was Smith's second DP World Tour win and will move him to No. 81 OWGR, approaching his career high of 69th. Eddie Pepperell, trying to reignite his career, finished fourth. A few months back, Pepperell was ranked in the 600s but now he's close to rejoining the top 200 with 10 straight made cuts, three of which have been top-10s. MacIntyre tied for 18th and Perez missed the cut.