After a week off, the PGA Tour heads to Port Royal in Bermuda for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
There are five events left in the FedExCup Fall for players to secure their PGA Tour cards for 2027 and potentially work their way into next year’s Signature Events.
The Butterfield Bermuda Championship, held at Port Royal since its inception in 2019, has routinely been won by massive outsiders. Indeed, only three of the seven winners have ranked inside the world’s top 300 at the time of victory (Seamus Power – 48th; Lucas Herbert – 57th; Adam Schenk – 246th).
Perhaps the biggest reason for lesser-fancied players winning at Port Royal is the unique conditions faced combined with the weak field. Port Royal is one of the shortest courses on the PGA Tour at around 6,800 yards, while the wind always throws plenty of randomness in across the week.
It means that strong drivers – typically the strongest players on tour – have their sharpest weapons blunted this week, bringing virtually the entire field into contention.
Owing to the difficulty off the tee, the rough at Port Royal is perfectly playable, with players needing to control their wedges in the wind and hole putts on the Bermuda greens.
Naturally, the stronger the wind, the more greens will be missed, meaning good short game skills are particularly useful this week.
Corey Conners is the highest-ranked player in the field, but does he make our Power Rankings? Read on to find out.
5 - Eric Cole
Having made the BMW Championship, Eric Cole’s status for 2027 is locked in, yet he’s still happy to head to Bermuda in what is his off-season, after already teeing it up at the Biltmore Championship and the Bank of Utah Championship.
Cole’s recent form isn’t anything to write home about – his T24 at the Biltmore was his first top-25 in his last 11 starts – and his history at Port Royal is even worse with two missed cuts on his only two appearances.
But Cole typically thrives on these sorts of venues.
In his last three outings at Pebble Beach, played in much tougher company, Cole has finished T15, T14 and T22, and at Sea Island, Cole’s last four finishes read T39, T3, T15, T21.
At Waialae, another shorter course played on Bermudagrass greens, Cole finished T13 and fifth in his last two appearances.
Despite his two missed cuts at Port Royal, Cole seems to have the game for Bermuda.
4 - Kevin Yu
Possessing a superb long game, Kevin Yu is perhaps better suited to other courses, but his T3 on debut at Port Royal suggests a degree of comfort at this particular venue.
Yu also has a T7 at Pebble Beach and was T11 at Sea Island in 2024 for his previous appearance at the RSM Classic.
Regarding his recent form, Yu is playing nicely, with five top-25s in his last nine starts, including a T4 at the Wyndham Championship, where finesse is needed more than power.
The putter that had previously held him back has started to behave better over the last 18 months, and a second PGA Tour victory may well be on the horizon.
3 - Chris Kirk
It’s not easy to find players in the best of form heading into the Bermuda Championship, but few are playing better than Chris Kirk at the moment.
The 41-year-old’s last four finishes read T8-T72-T10-T2, he is one of the best iron players in the field, possessing a tidy enough short game to contend at Port Royal.
Strangely, this is Kirk’s first-ever appearance at Port Royal, but there’s a big enough body of work on similar courses to believe Kirk can go well.
Kirk has four top-fives at Waialae, won at Sea Island back in 2014 (and has two top-fives since) and was solo second at Pebble Beach back in 2013.
2 - Ben Kohles
Only just finishing inside the top 150 on the FedExCup standings at the end of last year left Ben Kohles scrambling for starts this season, spending much of his time on the Korn Ferry Tour.
But some good form in the middle of the season (T23 US Open, T3 John Deere Classic, T5 ISCO Championship, 9th 3M Open) has shifted Kohles into the top 100 with a good chance of retaining his card for next season.
In the FedExCup Fall, Kohles has started T15, T13, T17 over his first three events and is playing some really nice golf.
Kohles has no real form to speak of at Port Royal or Pebble Beach but has top-fives at TPC Craig Ranch and TPC Deere Run – both gentler tests allowing lesser players to compete, and was T5 at the RSM Classic in 2023.
One of the most accurate ball-strikers in the field, Kohles’s recent form gives him plenty of room for optimism.
1 - Ben James
Still a newcomer to the PGA Tour, Ben James has just 10 starts to his name this season, and yet is well on course to find himself in the Signature Events next season.
A T4 at Corales in July suggests James has no concerns playing in the wind, while the solo-third at the Wyndham Championship suggests the youngster is comfortable enough on the shorter layouts.
Since then, James has a solo-second at the Biltmore Championship and a T5 at the Bank of Utah Championship, and across the last eight events, James ranks first in the field for SG: T2G and SG: TOT as per Golf Betting System.
A win on the PGA Tour feels like a matter of time, and this may well be the week for it.
