By Andy Lack

Greetings, and welcome to a weekly feature on RickRunGood.com. My name is Andy Lack, I host the Inside Golf Podcast, a twice weekly golf betting and DraftKings show, as well as the betting preview with Rick on the RickRunGood YouTube page and 300 Yards to Unknown Podcast Feed. I am incredibly excited to provide an in-depth course breakdown for each weekly PGA Tour stop. I’ve been able to find my lane by looking at golf courses from a deeper lens, via architecture, agronomy, and so much more. Every single Monday, I will break down absolutely everything you need to know about the weekly PGA Tour venue before you make your bets and DraftKings lineups. So without further ago, let’s dive in!

The Basics 

• Course: Port Royal Golf Course
• Location: Southampton Parish, Bermuda
• Designer: Robert Trent Jones (1970), Robert Trent Jones renovation (1995), Roger Rulewhich renovation (2008)
• Length: Par 71; 6,828 yards
• Hazards: Water comes into play on 5 holes
• Fairways: 419 Bermuda-grass
• Rough: 419 St. Augustine Zoysia, measuring two inches
• Greens: TifEagle Bermuda-grass measuring 6,000 square feet on average

 

The Butterfield Bermuda Championship is a relatively new professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour that debuted in October 2019 as part of the 2020 season. The event has been held the past three years at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton Parish, Bermuda. Originally designed to be an alternate event opposite the WGC – HSBC Championship, the Butterfield Bermuda Championship was elevated in 2020 to a standalone event as the result of successive cancellations of the WGC – HSBC Championship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament now awards 500 FedEx Cup points, a prize fund of 6.5 million dollars, and an invitation to the Masters will also be on the line.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. This is the worst field for a standalone PGA Tour event I have ever seen. Last year, at least a few big names (Matt Fitzpatrick, Patrick Reed) made the trip to Bermuda. Fitzpatrick and Reed will not be returning this year, and 2021 winner Lucas Herbert, will not even be back to defend his title! A strong case could be made that weeks like this present the most opportunity for those of us that are willing to do the legwork. I certainly agree with this sentiment, and I do plan on betting and playing daily fantasy this week. Yet the issue with this specific event is that there’s very little predictive value. Brendon Todd won the inaugural event in 2019 at 100/1 after missing three of his last four cuts. Brian Gay won in 2020 at 200/1 coming off four straight missed cuts! Lucas Herbert won last year at 80/1 after missing back to back cuts to start the season.

It’s not simply the weak field that makes this tournament a challenge to predict. The Bermuda Championship is also one of the most wind affected events on the schedule. 2019 saw benign conditions, and Brendon Todd cruised to victory at 24-under par. Yet 2020 and 2021 saw more challenging conditions, as Brian Gay and Lucas Herbert both triumphed at 15-under par, a nine stroke difference from 2019. Even day to day, wind can greatly affect scoring. In round two, Taylor Pendrith threatened a 59 in amiable conditions. He was not so lucky on Sunday, battling brutal conditions en route to a 76. Sahith Theegala shot a 66 on Friday and an 80 on Sunday. It’s nearly impossible for a PGA Tour pro to experience a difference of 15 stokes in a two-day stretch, but variance like this is commonplace at Port Royal. I say all of this to highlight the fact that we can break down this course until we are blue in the face, but I would exercise caution with placing any bets until we get an accurate weather report later in the week. I will do a full breakdown of the weather in my Wednesday DraftKings article, but for now, let’s just focus on the course.

On paper, Port Royal is about as easy of a course as players will face on the PGA Tour all season. At 6,828 yards, it is the shortest course on the PGA Tour schedule. The main challenge of Port Royal is the par threes, as three of the four one-shoters measure over 210 yards, and rank as the three hardest holes on the course. The 13th and 16th both measure 235 yards on the scorecard, play almost a quarter stroke over par, and rank as the hardest two holes on the entire course. On the other hand, the par fours are a complete cakewalk. Six of the 11 par fours at Port Royal measure under 400 yards, and only one par four measures over 460 yards. Port Royal features the shortest set of par fours on the entire PGA Tour schedule, and depending on wind, there’s a chance that players will have a short iron approach on every single one of them. The three par fives play more like par 4.5s, and rank as the three easiest holes on the course. The 17th and 7th both barely measure over 500 yards on the scorecard and feature over a 40% birdie rate and a 3.5% eagle rate. Players are losing to the field if they play the par fives in greater than 13 strokes.

Under benign conditions, it’s not challenging to identify the type of profile we should be looking for: elite wedge players and Bermuda-grass putters who consistently raise their baseline in easier scoring conditions. The wind, however, creates an added wrinkle. I created a model based on the expectation that we will see similar conditions to what we have had the past two years. Port Royal is an extremely easy and score-able course under calm conditions, but it can turn into an absolute grind in high winds, which are commonplace in this area of Bermuda. My guess is that we will see extremely easy scoring conditions for the majority of the tournament, with a few pockets of high winds. As previously mentioned, I’ll have a much better sense of this when we get a full weather report closer to tee off.

 

Stats 

• Off the Tee 
  • I remember last year that the narrative heading into this event was that any course that Brendon Todd and Brian Gay can win on must reward driving accuracy and mitigate any form of a distance advantage. This idea got thrown for a bit of a loop when last year’s leaderboard was completely populated by bombers. In 2022, the top-five players on the leaderboard all gained to the field in driving distance. The top-10 players in the field in driving distance all made the cut and had an average finishing position of 25.9 on the leaderboard. If we compare that to driving accuracy, three of the top-five players on the leaderboard lost to the field in driving accuracy. Zero players in the top-10 in this field in driving accuracy finished top-10 in the tournament. At least last year, there was a noticeable correlation between driving distance and finishing position, but zero evidence that hitting the fairway at an elite rate was translatable to success.
  • If we rewind to 2021 however, five of the top-10 players on the leaderboard, including winner, Brian Gay, lost to the field in driving distance, but second and third place finishers, Wyndham Clark and Ollie Schniederjans, both finished top-eight on the leaderboard in driving distance and lost to the field in driving accuracy. On the contrary, first and fourth place finishers, Brian Gay and Denny McCarthy, both ranked top-10 in driving accuracy and lost to the field in driving distance.
  • Ultimately, every year this tournament has been played, there are examples of bombers having just as much success as shorter, accurate types. I do not see a ton of value in looking too deeply at either driving distance or driving accuracy as a key stat this week. We have seen players who are completely deficient in each category still experience their fare share of success at Port Royal. Three years of data is still far too small of a sample size for us to make any broad generalizations about what type of skill-set this golf course truly favors, especially when the main character trait of the course has nothing to do with the architecture. The best conclusion I can come to is that all shapes and sizes can compete at Port Royal. Distance helps everywhere, and there is enough room off the tee here that we will likely see far more drivers at Port Royal than we would at the other sub-7,000 yard courses on the schedule. Still, Brian Gay outlined how shorter players were hardly disadvantaged, “It’s not a long golf course. It’s a golf course where I get a lot of short clubs and you can’t really overpower the course. It keeps the shorter hitters in the game, everybody has a chance here.” 
  • Brendon Todd echoed a similar sentiment, “I mean, this golf course is good for me. It’s one of the shorter ones we play on Tour and it forces everybody to hit the ball with the same clubs off the tee because there’s cross bunkers in certain places. The good thing about that for me is, I’m hitting the same clubs into greens as everybody else and for some reason that tends to work out well in my favor. So the course is good for me, for my game, and I’ve been swinging well.” 
  • Finally, one from Jim Furyk: “It’s not power, this golf course, power has nothing to do with playing well on this golf course.” 
  • Driving accuracy at Port Royal is only 52.9% compared to the Tour average of 62%, and the fairways aren’t even all that narrow. This tells me that players are still pulling driver often and have little concern for the two inch Zoysia rough. Todd brought up how cross bunkers force everyone to hit the same clubs off every tee, but we see this in the way that shorter players talk about Colonial: for whatever reason, shorter hitters always mis-calculate a longer hitter’s strategy off the tee. Distance certainly helps at Port Royal, but the main point is that shorter hitters aren’t dead on arrival the way they are at other courses. I would imagine the pendulum swings back too far in the other direction, and people overrate the importance of distance this year. Similar to TPC Summerlin and Pebble Beach, I actually think what players do off the tee at the Robert Trent Jones design is of very little importance. All strategies are welcome, and the emphasis at Port Royal falls squarely on the second shot.

 

• Approach
  • Despite featuring fairly large greens for such a short course, greens in regulation percentage at Port Royal is only 64.5% compared to the Tour average of 65.8%. This can easily be explained by swirling winds, as there is no other conceivable explanation for players hitting less than 65% of their greens on a such a wedge-heavy golf course.
  • Port Royal is not a course with shot link data, so we do not have proximity bucket info. Still, I feel pretty comfortable assuming that close to two thirds of all approach shots at Port Royal will come from inside 150 yards. Given the wind factor, it’s a bit harder for me to go hole by hole like I did last week at Congaree and provide specific approximations, but I’m fairly confident that inside 150 yards is the range that we want to be looking at this week. The best long-term wedge players in this field are Ben Martin, Ben Griffin, Max McGreevy, Camilo Villegas, Brian Stuard, Mark Hubbard, Harry Hall, Luke Donald, Henrik Norlander, and Will Gordon. 
  • It is worth mentioning that there will be two par threes coming down the stretch where players will need to step up and hit a 235 yard shot. Players will also have a long iron in their hands on the three reachable par fives. While wedge play certainly reigns supreme, there are still five guaranteed important long iron shots throughout the round. The best long-term long iron players in this field are Alex Smalley, Ryan Armour, Aaron Rai, Michael Kim, Austin Eckroat, Thomas Detry, Austin Smotherman, Lucas Glover, Ben Griffin, and Michael Gligic. 

 

• Around the Green
  • It’s hard to make a strong case for short game as a fundamental part of our handicapping process in any tournament typically won at 15-under par or lower. While Port Royal features a slightly lower than average greens in regulation percentage, it was a challenge to find any major correlation between sand saves or any other around the green metric and success at Port Royal. If I was to look at any short game metric, I would recommend examining players who raise their baseline around the green on Bermuda courses. Chipping technique can change out of Bermuda rough, and certain players are simply more comfortable on Bermuda golf courses. The best around the green players in this field on Bermuda golf courses are Fabian Gomez, Byeong Hun-An, Stephan Jaeger, Seamus Power, Scott Piercy, Jonathan Byrd, Harry Higgs, Vaughn Taylor, Camilo Villegas, and William McGirt. 

 

• Putting 
  • Putting always rises to prominence on courses that don’t do a great job of separating moderate from elite tee to green play. Brendon Todd, Brian Gay, and Lucas Herbert are all sub-standard ball-strikers and above average putters. Players such as Todd and Gay are absolutely dead on arrival at courses like Torrey Pines and Muirfield Village because their below average ball-striking puts them being the eight-ball in such a pronounced way. On the contrary, a player such as Rory McIlroy or Jon Rahm have so much less of an advantage on a course like Port Royal because Todd and Gay have no problem hitting greens, and score is so much more dependent on putting.
  • Todd described these greens as grainy. “They’re a little bit slow, so you’re always kind of guessing whether its two balls or three balls, how hard to hit it.” Many coastal courses feature slow, grainy putting surfaces, as green speeds must be kept in check on courses that are this exposed to the wind. Port Royal’s Bermuda greens are a far cry from the firm and fast Bermuda that we saw recently at courses such as Quail Hollow and Congaree, and far more similar to the Bermuda greens that we see every year at Kapalua and Waialae. The best long-term putters in this field on slow Bermuda greens are Denny McCarthy, Austin Cook, Chesson Hadley, Patrick Rodgers, Aaron Baddeley, Adam Long, Jonathan Byrd, Kevin Tway, Seung-Yul Noh, and Harry Higgs. 

 

• Scoring Stats 
  • I’ve already discussed how wind completely defines the character of this course, but here are a few player quotes that stood out to me.
    • Taylor Pendrith: “It was two different days for sure. You know, yesterday was some of the worst weather I’ve ever played in and just almost like surviving out there. Didn’t really matter how you hit it, you just have to hit shots. Today was a completely different story.” 
    • Rob Oppenheim: “A lot of hills, for sure. You know, the wind makes this course, completely changes the course. I got here Monday, played and it was a completely different wind, so this course is very dictated by the wind direction and how much wind.” 
  • Attempting to identify players that raise their baseline in windy conditions makes a ton of sense from a handicapping standpoint, but I would tread lightly when it comes to wind stats. Most wind stats are going to account for how windy it was that round. The problem is that wind changes on a minute to minute, hour to hour basis. It comes in different directions, and players will face it during different points in their round. From a statistical standpoint, I do not believe we are there yet in terms of being able to accurately identify who are “good” or “bad” wind players. There are not enough times per year where players see extremely windy conditions for us to create a large enough same size without being forced to use stale statistics from over five years ago. The best I could do was look at the windiest rounds over the past three years, create a minimum of 10 rounds played, and spotlight the best ball-strikers. The best ball-strikers in this field in windy conditions over the past three years (mimimum 10 rounds) are Chesson Hadley, Scott Brown, Russell Knox, Robert Streb, Scott Piercy, Nick Taylor, Joseph Bramlett, Ryan Armour, Adam Schenk, and C.T. Pan. Still, if you see folks touting “he’s a good wind player,” that’s an immediate red flag. From a statistical standpoint, our ability to measure wind play is still extremely limited.
  • While planning for extremely windy conditions is prudent, we know with certainty that players will see benign conditions for at least part of the event. In such conditions, Port Royal is a total pushover and players will need to generate as many birdie looks per round as possible to keep up. The players in this field that give themselves the most birdie or eagle putts inside 15 feet per round are Lucas Glover, Mark Hubbard, Brian Stuard, S.H. Kim, Austin Smotherman, Callum Tarren, Thomas Detry, Vaughn Taylor, and Harry Hall. 
  • While birdies or better gained is a statistic more dependent on putting, it’s important to identify those who convert those opportunities at the highest clip. The players in this field that make the most birdies per round are Scott Brown, Stephan Jaeger, Thomas Detry, Harry Hall, Peter Malnati, Ben Griffin, Justin Lower, Nate Lashley, S.H. Kim, and Nick Hardy. 
  • Port Royal is the shortest course on the PGA Tour schedule, and while I would not classify it as a positional, club-down course such as Harbor Town or Waialae, I still see value in identifying players who have had the most success on short courses over the course of their career. The best players in this field on sub 7,200 yard courses over the past three years (minimum 15 rounds) have been Seamus Power, Denny McCarthy, Austin Eckroat, Nick Taylor, Erik Van Rooyen, Charley Hoffman, Ryan Armour, Cameron Percy, Sam Ryder, and Matthias Schwab. 

 

• Comp Courses/Course History 
  • There is certainly something to be said for having experience on this golf course and in these conditions. Matt Fitzpatrick had an interesting quote about the topographical challenges of Port Royal and how having an understanding of where to hit it is extremely useful. “The elevation is a lot around this golf course. Me and my caddie definitely noticed it this morning walking up and down the hills, it was tiring. I think it’s one that you’ve got to, certainly the second shots that are up the hill that are pretty blind, you’ve really got to know where you’re hitting it. You’ve got to pick good targets and be very disciplined, you can’t get too aggressive. I think in terms of the elevation, you’ve got to be in control of your ball-flight and know your numbers and distances, where to hit and where not to.” 
  • Port Royal is one of the hillier courses on the schedule, and it does feature some blind shots. While I would not significantly knock a player who will be making their first appearance here, those who have played well at Port Royal before certainly deserve a bump. The best players in this field at Port Royal have been Brian Gay, Russell Knox, Harry Higgs, Kramer Hickok, David Hearn, Peter Malnati, Alex Smalley, Scott Piercy, Denny McCarthy, and Hank Lebioda. 
  • Pebble Beach is another track that comes to mind in terms of a short, coastal course where off the tee is of little relevance, and the emphasis falls squarely on the second shot, which is more often than not with a wedge. While Pebble tends to feature more consistent conditions than Port Royal, both courses’ greatest defense is the wind, and are a walk in the park in the absence of high winds. The best players in this field at Pebble Beach (minimum 4 rounds) have been Nate Lashley, Vaughn Taylor, Byeong Hun-An, Ryan Armour, Nick Taylor, Chesson Hadley, Patrick Rodgers, Sean O’Hair, Brian Gay, and Seamus Power. 
  • The other short, coastal course that deserves a shout is Waialae. Players can be more aggressive off the tee at Port Royal, and driving accuracy is more important at Waialae. Still, both courses feature slow, grainy, Bermuda greens, are exposed to occasional high winds, and place a large emphasis on wedge play. The best players in this field at Waialae (mimimum 4 rounds) have been Russell Knox, Brian Stuard, Scott Piercy, George McNeill, Nick Hardy, Kramer Hickok, Luke Donald, Dylan Wu, Ben Martin, and Ryan Armour. 

 

Model Inputs 

• Off the Tee (0%)
• Approach (33%)
  • Strokes Gained Approach (18%)
  • Proximity 100-125 yards (5%)
  • Proximity 125-150 yards (5%)
  • Proximity 200 yards plus (5%)
• Around the Green (6%)
  • Strokes Gained Around the Green: Bermuda courses (5%)
• Putting (18%)
  • Strokes Gained Putting: Slow Bermuda-grass greens (20%)
• Scoring Stats (29%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Windy Conditions (5%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Short courses (8%)
  • Birdies or Better Gained (8%)
  • Opportunities Gained (8%)
• Comp Courses/Course History (14%)
  • Port Royal (6%)
  • Pebble Beach (4%)
  • Waialae (4%)

 

Top 20 

1. Ben Griffin
2. Mark Hubbard
3. Chesson Hadley
4. Alex Smalley
5. Vaughn Taylor
6. Erik Van Rooyen
7. Patrick Rodgers
8. Aaron Rai
9. Ryan Armour
10. Harry Hall
11. Adam Schenk
12. Stephan Jaeger
13. Thomas Detry
14. S.H. Kim
15. Lucas Glover
16. Seung-Yul Noh
17. Denny McCarthy
18. Chris Stroud
19. Adam Long
20. Matthias Schmid