Last man standing, and top dog for a reason. Séamus Power had entered the Bermuda Championship as the top-ranked player in the field and, after an eventful final round at Port Royal Golf Club in which his main challenger Ben Griffin dramatically fell away with a series of errors, the Waterford man navigated a route to victory to claim his second career win on the PGA Tour.
Power, who’d started the final round tied with Griffin, avoided any of the calamities that befell his main protagonist as he pulled clear on the homeward run to sign for a closing 70 for a total of 19-under-par 265, ultimately a shot clear of Belgium’s Thomas Detry.
The benefits of the win were immediate: Power jumped 99 places up to fifth in the FedEx Cup standings, edging ahead of Rory McIlroy, and earned a pay-day of €1.15 million. Power is also projected to move to a new career best 32nd when the official world rankings are confirmed, while the win also assured him a repeat invitation to next year’s Masters.
The stretch of holes from the 13th to the 16th had proven to be the toughest all week on the windswept course. For Griffin, it started a hole early, as his homeward run turned into a nightmarish finish which started with a bogey on the 12th that only got worse the closer he got from home.
Flash of inspiration from Amad casts Amorim’s dropping of Rashford and Garnacho as a masterstroke
Unbreakable, a cautionary tale about the heavy toll top-level rugby can take
The top 25 women’s sporting moments of the year: top spot revealed with Katie Taylor, Rhasidat Adeleke and Kellie Harrington featuring
Irish WWE star Lyra Valkyria: ‘At its core, we’re storytellers. Everything comes down to good versus evil’
Indeed, Griffin’s run of bogey-bogey-bogey-bogey-double bogey – dropping six shots in five holes – from the 12th proved destructive to his own ambitions but also enabled Power to move through the open door with purpose.
The 14th hole proved to be defining is so many ways, both for Griffin’s woes and for Power’s brilliance. There, Griffin pulled his tee shot left into trees and had to take an unplayable lie and that horrid bogey run, while in contrast Power played it brilliantly in sinking a 30-footer for a birdie for a two-shot swing that jumped him into the outright lead where he stayed to the end.
Power started his round with a birdie on the first and added further gains at the fifth and seventh holes to turn in 33 and reeled off three straight pars on the back nine before suffering his first bogey of the round on the 13th.
However, as Griffin’s travails continued, Power claimed the initiative with that superb birdie on the 14th, and while he wobbled with bogeys on the 15th and 16th he rebounded with a birdie on the par-five 17th, executing a lovely chip from greenside rough for a tap-in birdie, to have a two-shot lead heading up the 18th.
Detry had birdied his closing two holes, holing out from a greenside bunker on the 18th, but even he knew the deal was done for Power in leaving the recorder’s room before Power had finished. As it happened, Power’s approach hit the green and spun back down the hill from where he pitched to eight feet. With two shots to win, he took them, finishing with a bogey but with victory assured.
“This course was always going to be a tale of two sides,” said Power of how the front nine offers up birdies and the homeward run more of a grind. “I’m absolutely delighted, a completely different feeling [to winning last year’s Barbasol Championship] but just as special.”
Power achieved his primary ambition of winning while also getting off to a fast start on the new wraparound 2022/23 season and heads to this week’s Mayakoba Championship in Mexico aiming to maintain the momentum.
For Detry, with Irishman JP Fitzgerald on the bag, the runner-up finish earned him a place in the field at Mayakoba but also ensuring he will get more starts on the PGA Tour. “But I think it will make a big difference now for the next few weeks and few months ahead. So I’m very pleased with the way I finished, that was great,” said Detry.
