Butterfield Bermuda Championship: Predictions, tips and odds

The penultimate event of the FedExCup Fall - The Butterfield Bermuda Championship - returns to Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton for the sixth consecutive season, and the PGA TOUR's Mike Glasscott has six tips across four markets.

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Butterfield Bermuda Championship tips

Tips to win

Justin Lower (25/1)

Looking for his first win on TOUR, only one of the five previous winners broke their maiden at Port Royal.

Justin Lower’s recent heat and course form pushed him to the top of my list. The co-leader after 54 holes in Cabo San Lucas last week, the 35-year-old ranked in the top 10 in Fairways, Greens in Regulation, and Putting. 

Earning a share of second place racked up his third top-10 payday this season on foreign soil (T3 Vidanta Vallarta; T4 Corales Puntacana). The Ohio native, making his fourth consecutive start in Bermuda, has never missed the cut.

In 12 rounds, he posted 11 loops in the 60s and owns a 67.75 scoring average. Cashing T17 on debut in 2021, he added T8 in 2022 and T20 in 2023 for an aggregate of 39-under-par. 

Camilo Villegas, the 2023 champion, also finished as a co-runner-up at the World Wide Technology Championship before his victory.

Nico Echevarria (35/1)

The champion three weeks ago in Japan at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP decided that he was too hot to forego the rest of the FedExCup Fall.

After the bye week, Nico Echevarria returned with the rest of the TOUR to Cabo San Lucas and added another top-10 payday (T6).

The 2023 Puerto Rico Open champion won for the first time navigating similar gusty conditions forecast for this week.

The strength of his game is finding fairways (31st) and Greens in Regulation (33rd). With confidence at a sky-high level, the 30-year-old also has no problem making birdies (28th).

Tips to finish top 10

Lucas Glover (13/5)

The forecast suggests the wind will blow all weekend so I will hitch my wagon to a proven tee-to-green player in Lucas Glover who's experienced feast or famine on the Port Royal layout.

Half of his eight rounds are 67 or better but the other half are 70 or worse, including three rounds above par.

Four of the five previous winners were over the age of 32 and the six-time winner on TOUR is the highest-ranked player in the Official World Golf Rankings entered.

After collecting cheques of T24-T3-T3-T13 in his last four starts, I’ll gladly wade in.

Patrick Rodgers (7/2)

Returning to Southampton for the first time since cashing T3 and solo fourth in 2022 and 2021, the Stanford man will not miss another chance to pad his bank account in the Atlantic Ocean.

Sitting at No. 55 in the FedExCup Fall, Patrick Rodgers is comfortably in the Aon Next 10 and can turn his attention to winning in his 280th start on TOUR.

The familiarity of the venue, plus he's on form, cashing in 11 of his last 12 starts, including T24 in Cabo San Lucas, suggests he is ready to contend, and win.

Tip to finish top 20

Ryan McCormick (6/1)

Veteran investors notice that the rank-and-file blow hot for patches each year. Ryan McCormick withdrew from the Black Desert Championship after missing the cut in his five previous events.

Flipping the switch the following week in Las Vegas, the 33-year-old rookie found something in the desert dirt of TPC Summerlin and posted T16, his first top 25 since T4 at the Myrtle Beach Classic in early May.

After not making the trip to Japan, he continued his solid play at the World Wide Technology Championship. Cashing T24, he posted back-to-back top-25 paydays for the first time this season. Get hot, stay hot!

Alex Smalley (9/5)

I find it impossible to ignore that the former Duke Blue Devil has never posted a round worse than 70 in three visits to Bermuda.

The 12 rounds on his record show 11 have posted 69 or better, but he’s never cashed a cheque in the top 10.

Over the last three years, the 28-year-old posted an aggregate of 33-under with finishes of T30, T11, and T12. Playing the weekend over in four consecutive events entering the week, his best result, T5 at the Sanderson Farms Championship, was also on Bermudagrass.

Port Royal course guide and fact file

Yards (per official scorecard):	6,828
Par:	71 (36-35)
Greens:	TifEagle Bermuda; 8,000 square feet on average
Stimpmeter:	11.5 feet and up
Rough:	419 Bermudagrass at 2 inches
Bunkers/Water Hazards	87/4
Architect(s):	Robert Trent Jones, Sr., (1971); Roger Rulewich (2008).
Defending Champion:	Camilo Villegas (-24; 260).
Multiple Champions Entered:	None.
Course Record:	61; Alex Noren (2023); Taylor Pendrith (2021).
Tournament Record:	260; Villegas (2023) and Brendon Todd (2019).

One of only three courses on the PGA TOUR schedule that does not reach 7,000 yards, Port Royal is the shortest of the trio and remains the exact yardage and par for the sixth consecutive year.

The standard par-71 includes a pair of par-3 holes on each of the nine holes, including two stretching 235 yards on the loop back to the clubhouse. The front nine duo, playing 148 and 213 yards, provides a warm-up before the meatier challenges. As a group, they rank annually in the top third of par-3 groupings on TOUR.

The massive Bermuda greens provide ample room for recovery shots that do not find the tight fairways. Four of the five winners ranked in the top 15 GIR, and all five registered in the top 11 in Putting. Port Royal is the first event on Bermudagrass greens since the Sanderson Farms Championship at the end of September.

When the wind lies down, birdies will fill the scorecards. In 2022, Seamus Power set the tournament record for birdies with 28. Inaugural winner Brendon Todd and 2023 champion Camilo Villegas both circled 27.

Only the 2020 event played over par at 71.151.

Internationals have won the last three tournaments after Americans won the first two editions.

All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to withdrawal or change at any time.