For the year's penultimate event, the PGA Tour is heading to Bermuda.
A field of 120 players will tee it up this week at Port Royal Golf Club for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. The event boasts a $6.9 million purse, but there's more than just a substantial payday at stake. Many of them are trying to crack top 125 in the FedEx standings and secure a Tour card for 2025.
This week's event includes five past winners in Bermuda: Brendon Todd, Brian Gay, Lucas Herbert, Séamus Power and Camilo Villegas. Someone will soon add their name to the list.
Here's what you need to know for this week's event.
2024 Butterfield Bermuda Championship: The Course
Since its inception in 2019, the Bermuda Championship has been played at Port Royal Golf Course, a Robert Trent Jones design.
The layout is a par-71 (36-35) that stretches 6,828 yards. The average green size is 8,000 sq. ft., and the course has 87 bunkers with water coming into play on seven holes.
It sounds daunting on paper but Port Royal tends to go easy on the pros. In 2023, it was the 52nd hardest course on Tour (out of 58), yielding an average score of 68.75 (-2.254 under par).
The tournament is typically decided on the back nine.
“The stretch of 13 through 16 is what catches most people's eyes around this golf course,” said Ben Griffin ahead of last year's Bermuda Championship. “Those are some of the hardest holes, maybe the pivotal holes coming down the stretch, the ones that you need to make pars or give yourself birdie chances on.
“The front nine's very gettable, there's not a whole lot—I don't have any worries really about any of the holes.”
The par-3 13th and 16th holes both ranked inside the top 100 hardest holes on Tour last season. No. 13 was 92nd and No. 16 was 59th.
Tropical conditions can also wreak havoc on the event. In 2021, play was suspended in Round 1 due to 40-mph wind. Matthew Fitzpatrick called it "the hardest wind I’ve ever played in.” This year, rain and wind are in the forecast again, which may affect scoring.
“I'm not looking forward to the weather next week (in Bermuda), that's for sure," Justin Lower said last Sunday after the World Wide Technology Championship. “It looks pretty brutal right now.”
Bermuda Championship: Divine Intervention
Last year, Camilo Villegas followed up Erik Van Rooyen's emotional win in Mexico with one of his own in Bermuda the next week.
Villegas lost his 22-month-old daughter, Mia, to brain cancer in 2020. A 17-year Tour veteran with four wins to his name, the Colombian had not recorded a victory in nine years and had fallen to No. 752 in the world.
Then Villegas finished runner-up to van Rooyen at the World Wide Technology Championship for his best result since 2016. And it would only take one more week for Villegas to top that result. He edged Alex Noren in Bermuda by two strokes to return to the winner's circle.
The 41-year-old claimed a two-year Tour exemption and returned to the Masters and PGA Championship for the first time since 2015. In two weeks, he rose 589 spots in the world rankings.
But above all, the victory was a tribute to Mia.
“I’ve got my little one up there watching,” he said pointing up to the sky after sinking the winning putt.
PGA Tour Status on the Line
There are only two events left this year for players to secure full Tour status for next season.
The current bubble boy sitting at No. 125 is Hayden Springer. He leads No. 126 Dylan Wu by a mere five points.
Every player in the standings from No. 118 (Zac Blair) to No. 135 (Sam Ryder) is in this week's field, except Matt Wallace (130), who is he's safe for next year by virtue of his 2023 win at the Corales Puntacana Championship.
There are some notable names on the outside looking in, such as former Tour winners Wesley Bryan (128), Kevin Tway (129), Gary Woodland (137), Garrick Higgo (138) and Chesson Hadley (142), along with rising star Pierceson Coody (132).
Others barely on the inside include Joel Dahmen (121), Henrik Norlander (122), and Daniel Berger (124), who returned to Tour this year after missing 19 months with a back injury.
View the FedExCup Fall standings here—and the full field here.
2024 Bermuda Championship: How to Watch
All four rounds will be broadcast on Golf Channel. Rounds 1 and 2 will air from 1-4 p.m. EST, while Round 3 will run from 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and the final round will be shown from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Four Things to Know for This Week's Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
