Bermuda Final Round Scrapped as Power and Smotherman Play One Playoff for $1.08 Million

TL;DR: The final round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship was scrapped after high winds at Port Royal Golf Course, and the PGA Tour has made the results final through 54 holes, leaving Austin Smotherman and Seamus Power tied at 16 under par on 197. The two will settle the title in a sudden-death playoff on Monday morning, broadcast on Golf Channel from 8 a.m. ET, subject to weather. The winner takes $1.08 million from the $6 million purse and the runner-up takes $654,000, a $426,000 difference decided without a final round.

A golf tournament is supposed to be decided over 72 holes. This one will be decided by however many extra holes it takes, because the 72nd hole will never be played. Sunday’s play at Port Royal was postponed in the morning after gusts topped 40 mph, and by Sunday evening the Tour had gone further than a postponement. It made the 54-hole results final, citing the unfavourable forecast for Monday and the uncertainty around completing a full final round, USA Today reports. The final round never started on Sunday. It will not start on Monday either.

Who is left standing after 54 holes?

Two players, tied, with nobody else within two shots. Smotherman and Power both finished three rounds at 16 under par on 197, Athlon reports. Smotherman got there with rounds of 65, 66 and 66, and Power with rounds of 66, 64 and 67. Taylor Moore, Corey Conners and Ben Silverman finished tied third at 14 under, two shots short of the playoff, and their week is over. They had been close enough to imagine a final-round charge. There will be no opportunity to make one, Athlon reports.

That is what makes the Tour’s decision so stark. In a normal week, a two-shot gap with 18 holes to play is a contest. In this week, a two-shot gap with no holes to play is a final result, and the only players with anything left to play for are the two at the top. Everybody else’s money and points are already settled, from the $318,000 each for the tied third-place finishers down through the field.

What is actually at stake on Monday morning?

A $426,000 swing on a single hole, to start with. The winner takes $1.08 million, which is 18 percent of the $6 million purse, and the runner-up takes $654,000, USA Today reports. In a full final round, that gap would be decided over 18 holes, with room for a bad hole and a recovery. In sudden death, a single bogey can end it, and a single birdie can win it. Smotherman’s own week shows how thin that margin already was: his third round included a 10-foot par save at the 18th, Athlon reports, a putt that now carries the weight of a playoff place because there was no fourth round to make up a lost shot.

The season stakes are just as sharp. Smotherman is looking for his second win this month, after his first PGA Tour title at the Bank of Utah Championship earlier in October, USA Today reports, and he sits at No. 52 on the FedEx Cup Fall points list. Power is a past Bermuda champion, winning here in 2022, and he came into the week at No. 103, just outside the top 100 who keep full status, USA Today reports. GOLF.com projects a win would move Power into the top 50, and notes that win or lose, Power will move well into the top 100 safe zone after the playoff. With only four tournaments remaining in the 2026 PGA Tour season, GOLF.com reports, those points are not abstract. They are next year’s status.

Who has the edge in a playoff?

On paper, Power, and it is not close. He won the 2022 Bermuda Championship, and his first PGA Tour title came in a playoff against J.T. Poston at the 2021 ISCO Championship, which he won on the sixth extra hole, Athlon reports. His Tour playoff record is 1-0. Smotherman will be making his first appearance in a PGA Tour playoff, Athlon reports. That experience gap matters more in sudden death than it would over 18 holes, because there is no time to settle into a rhythm. The first extra hole is also a test of nerve that a full round does not impose in the same way.

The course itself will not make it easier. Port Royal is a coastal layout exposed to strong Atlantic winds, and Monday’s forecast still presents challenges, with scattered showers and wind gusts approaching 30 mph in the afternoon, according to Golf Channel via Heavy’s earlier reporting. The Tour’s Sunday update kept both the starting hole and the tee time weather-dependent, Athlon reports, which is why this article does not name a hole as settled fact. Golf Channel coverage is scheduled from 8 a.m. ET on Monday, GOLF.com reports, subject to weather conditions, and that is the firmest viewing detail available before the playoff begins.

How will Monday morning unfold?

With a sudden-death playoff, broadcast on Golf Channel from 8 a.m. ET, subject to weather. The Tour’s Sunday update put the tentative start at 9 a.m. local time in Bermuda, Athlon reports, and kept the starting hole weather-dependent, so fans should expect the broadcast to confirm the hole and the tee time on the morning itself. There is no 18-hole round to settle into: the first player to win a hole outright wins the tournament, and a halved hole sends both players to the next one.

Has this happened before?

Yes, and the precedent shows why Bermuda needs a playoff at all. At the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the final round was postponed on Sunday and cancelled on Monday after a storm, and Wyndham Clark was named champion after a third-round 60 put him in the lead, USA Today reports. Clark was alone at the top, so there was nobody to play off against. In Bermuda, the leaders are tied, so the Tour cannot name a champion without a playoff. The FedEx Cup format explains why Fall points carry this weight, and the Spanish Open’s own final-round drama this month showed how a single putt can change a leaderboard, but neither of those weeks had its final round taken away entirely.

That is the value in this story beyond the money. A tournament that was supposed to end on Sunday will instead end on Monday morning, in sudden death, after a weekend in which the wind did more to the leaderboard than any player did. Smotherman can win two starts in a row. Power can become the first player to win this tournament twice. One of them will do it without playing a final round, and the other will go home with $654,000 and the knowledge that a full round might have changed everything. The playoff will tell us which one, and this article will be updated in place with the winner when it ends.

Bermuda is the latest stop in a busy autumn on tour. Eugenio Chacarra led his home Spanish Open on a fractured toe, Daniel Hillier toed a hole-in-one on his way to winning the BMW Spanish Open, and 19-year-old Blades Brown became the youngest Korn Ferry graduate to earn a PGA Tour card. None of those weeks ended with the final round taken off the schedule entirely, which is what sets Bermuda apart.