The way Seamus Power closed out the calendar year 2022, he must have assumed the best was yet to come. After securing his second PGA Tour title at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in late October, Power then posted top-5 finishes at both the World Wide Technology Championship and the RSM Classic.
But 2023 has been a different story. The 36-year-old native of Waterford, Ireland, has failed to crack the top 10 in 20 starts this year, and now the news has gotten even worse: the East Tennessee State University product was forced to withdraw from this week’s Horizon Irish Open with a hip injury that will keep him out of action for at least two months.
This week’s Irish Open at the K Club in Kildare, Ireland, has drawn one of the DP World Tour’s strongest fields with Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Adam Scott, Min Woo Lee and Shane Lowry all vying for the title. The event will be played less than two hours from where Power grew up.
Thanks to his early-season success, Power made almost $4 million on the PGA Tour in 2022-23 and finished 41st in the FedEx Cup standings, a personal best. But the hip injury surfaced at the Genesis Scottish Open, where he was forced to withdraw, and he missed the cut the following week at the British Open at Royal Liverpool.
He then tied for last place at the first playoff event in Memphis and failed to qualify for the Tour Championship thanks to a rough showing at the BMW Championship, where he finished 48th out of 50 players.
Power did have one huge highlight in the spring, however, as he became the third player in history to make back-to-back holes-in-one in the Par 3 Contest at Augusta National Golf Club during Masters week.
The previous two players to accomplish the feat were Claude Harmon in 1968 (Nos. 4 and 5) and Toshi Izawa in 2002 (Nos. 5 and 6).
Back-to-back holes in one! Seamus Power taps into Irish luck at the Par 3 Contest. #themasters pic.twitter.com/dfO5T7yOsJ
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 5, 2023
