Smotherman Waited 100 Starts for One Win — Now He Has Two in Two Starts
GOATIFYAustin Smotherman spent 100 PGA Tour starts chasing his first victory. It took only one more start to collect his second. The 32-year-old American beat Seamus Power on the third extra hole of a wind-battered Monday playoff at the 2026 Butterfield Bermuda Championship, transforming a strange, shortened tournament into a career-changing October double.
The scoreboard had been frozen at 54 holes after gusts above 40 mph made Sunday's final round impossible. Smotherman and Power were tied at 16-under 197, so the rest of the field could go home while the two leaders returned to Port Royal's exposed par-3 16th. Three attempts at the same hole produced the smallest possible separation: a par for Smotherman, a bogey for Power.
The result matters beyond the trophy. Smotherman has won the Bank of Utah Championship and Bermuda in consecutive starts, secured major and elite-event opportunities, and turned a fight for stability into an argument that he belongs in bigger fields. Power missed the title, but his runner-up finish may have saved his own season.
Three trips to the 16th turned a 54-hole tie into a test of nerve
The championship's defining stretch was not a conventional final nine. It was one hole, played three times, after officials decided Sunday's dangerous wind made a full fourth round untenable. Port Royal's 16th is a par 3 with the Atlantic alongside it, a setting that turns ordinary distance control into a negotiation with the breeze. With both leaders at 16 under after 54 holes, there was no cushion for either player.
On the first trip, Smotherman missed the green but found a way to save par. Power reached a position from which a birdie could have ended the tournament immediately, yet his putt from roughly 20 feet stayed out. That was the first major reversal of the morning: the player who had appeared to hold the cleaner chance did not convert, and the player under pressure survived.
The second trip offered a different problem. Smotherman found the front of the putting surface and faced a very long first putt, approximately 75 feet. His distance control left a routine second putt. Power had to recover from a greenside bunker and made the par putt that kept the playoff alive. Neither man was winning with a spectacular shot; both were refusing to lose with an avoidable mistake.
Officials then moved the hole location forward for the third attempt. Smotherman again trusted an 8-iron, finding the green with a birdie opportunity from inside 15 feet. Power's tee shot finished in thick rough left of the green, and his recovery left too much work. When Power could not save par, Smotherman needed only two putts to take the title.
The finish was narrow, but not random. Repeatedly playing the same wind-exposed hole rewarded conservative target selection, reliable short-game decisions and the ability to reset after every missed opportunity. Smotherman survived his early error, avoided another on the decisive attempt and left Power needing the harder recovery. The third par was worth a trophy.
Power lost the playoff but won the Tour-card battle
Seamus Power will remember the chance he had to finish the playoff on the first extra hole. The Irishman had a makeable birdie opportunity while Smotherman was scrambling from off the green. Instead, the putt missed, and two holes later Power was the runner-up. In a sport where the difference between first and second can come down to one swing, that sequence will sting.
Yet the competitive cost of losing and the career value of finishing second are not the same thing. Power arrived in Bermuda at No. 103 in the FedExCup Fall standings, just outside the top 100 that retain full PGA Tour status for the following season. His second-place finish moved him to No. 68, removing much of the uncertainty around his 2027 playing opportunities.
That security matters for a 39-year-old with an established but hard-earned career. Power previously won this tournament in 2022 and the Barbasol Championship in 2021, the latter after a six-hole playoff. He was chasing a third PGA Tour victory and a chance to become Bermuda's first repeat champion. Instead, he leaves with a second runner-up finish at Port Royal and a much stronger position on the calendar.
His playoff performance was also more resilient than the final bogey suggests. He matched Smotherman's par on the first extra hole and then saved par from a bunker on the second. The decisive tee shot was the one that could not be recovered, not evidence that he had lost his composure throughout the contest. Wind-exposed par 3s can punish even sensible choices when the landing area shrinks.
The practical distinction is important. A title would have added another winner's exemption and a fresh career headline. But the runner-up finish, worth $654,000, also changes which tournaments Power can plan for and how aggressively he can schedule next year. Bermuda did not give him the ending he wanted; it did give him the stability he needed.
Smotherman's second win makes his first look like the beginning
The Bank of Utah Championship was supposed to be the breakthrough story: Smotherman won for the first time on the PGA Tour in his 100th career start. Three weeks later, with Bermuda his next start, the storyline has changed. One victory can be an isolated peak. Two wins in consecutive starts suggest a player whose baseline, confidence and opportunities may all be shifting at once.
The journey to this moment was not a straight climb. Smotherman had only three top-10 finishes across 77 PGA Tour starts between 2016 and 2024. He then earned his way back from the Korn Ferry Tour, where two victories in 2025 helped restore his place at the top level. That history makes the October run especially meaningful: he knows the difference between having a Tour card and having enough results to shape a season on his own terms.
His Bermuda performance showed a different kind of progress from the Utah win. The weather removed the final round, and the sudden-death format compressed the tournament into decisions that had to be made with very little margin. Smotherman did not need to dominate every shot. He needed to stay patient after a missed green, judge the wind repeatedly and execute a straightforward two-putt when his opponent's mistake opened the door.
The rewards compound quickly. The win brought another $1.08 million and 500 FedExCup points, lifting him to No. 51 in the standings. His two fall victories have also secured a place in the 2027 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and entry to the first two $20 million Signature Events of the coming season, at Pebble Beach and Riviera. Those are not merely prizes; they are chances to test his game against stronger fields.
Winning twice does not automatically make Smotherman a future major contender. Fall events have different fields and pressures from the season's biggest tournaments. But access is the first step toward proving that a run is sustainable. The player who spent years trying to earn more starts has now earned the right to choose a more ambitious schedule.
A shortened championship still carried full-sized consequences
The 2026 Bermuda Championship became official after 54 holes because the wind made Sunday's final round unplayable. Everyone except the tied leaders had a final position. Taylor Moore, Corey Conners and Ben Silverman shared third at 14 under, two strokes behind Smotherman and Power. The playoff determined first and second without asking the rest of the field to play another round.
Weather-shortened events are part of professional golf's rules, but they create unusual comparisons. A player who built momentum through three rounds may be denied the chance to chase on Sunday, while a co-leader must suddenly prepare for a head-to-head format. It is not inherently unfair to apply the same shortened-tournament rule to everyone, yet it changes which skills decide the outcome. In Bermuda, the title came down to three repetitions of a single coastal par 3.
There is precedent for both the shortened event and the delayed playoff. Wyndham Clark won the weather-shortened 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after 54 holes. Earlier in 2026, Viktor Hovland beat Scottie Scheffler in a Monday playoff at the Travelers Championship. Bermuda combined those two unusual circumstances: a full field stopped after three rounds and a champion who still had to be decided the following morning.
The prize and points structure gave the final three holes enormous weight. Smotherman earned $1.08 million and 500 FedExCup points from a $6 million purse; Power received $654,000 and the runner-up points that lifted him comfortably inside the full-status cutoff. For both men, the playoff influenced not just this week's standings but the events they can enter and the flexibility they will have next season.
The broader lesson is that FedExCup Fall golf is not a footnote to the main season. Players are competing for exemptions, entry to elite tournaments and the security to plan the next year without constantly looking over their shoulders. Bermuda's weather stole the normal Sunday spectacle. It did not diminish what the result will mean when the 2027 calendar begins.
Smotherman will be remembered as the winner who needed three attempts at the same par 3 to finish a tournament that could not hold its final round. But the lasting headline is larger: after a 100-start wait for his first PGA Tour win, he now owns two titles in consecutive starts and a dramatically better set of opportunities for 2027.
Power's missed chance deserves its place in the story, too. He came within one birdie putt of the trophy, recovered well enough to extend the playoff and left with full-status security despite the final bogey. The conditions were brutal, the format unusual and the margins tiny. The consequences for both players are anything but small.
