BERMUDA CHAMPIONSHIP: With just a week remaining until the once-in-a-lifetime November Masters, many of the world’s top players have decided that a few days in Bermuda is not the ideal way to prepare, choosing rest and practice instead, but the PGA Tour’s show will go on, and an interesting field comprised of journeymen, past-their-prime contenders, hangers-on, and young up-and-comers will tee it up this week at picturesque Port Royal Golf Club in the second edition of the Bermuda Championship.
Port Royal is one of the more well-known tropical island courses in the world; built and designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in the late 1960s, it played host to the PGA Grand Slam of Golf from 2009-2014 and has long been a fixture of golf tourism magazines thanks primarily to the stunning par-3 16th, a hole perched atop cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. As you would imagine with such a course, wind and weather can be the difference between a birdie-fest, which was what we saw last year with Brendon Todd taking home the trophy at 24-under, and a real grind, like the 2014 staging of the Grand Slam of Golf, when 6-under was the winning score, or the 2011 edition, when victor Keegan Bradley finished at minus-4. According to the notoriously unreliable weather forecasts, the wind is supposed to blow this weekend, so things could get dicey out there.
As far as the layout itself goes, it’s quite short by Tour standards, measuring just over 6,800 yards, and its narrow fairways are lined with longish Bermuda rough that can present problems when trying to control ball-flight into the small, firm greens. We should definitely favor the straight-hitters over the bombers this week, and I’d look carefully at good iron players that favor Bermuda grass– players like Todd, last year’s champion.
Speaking of Todd, he’s the only player in the field this week who teed it up at last week’s ZOZO Championship, and at 16.5 he sits behind only Will Zalatoris (13.5) in BETDAQ’s Win Market. I thought he was worth a chance at the ZOZO at 120.0, but at shorter than 20/1, I think it may be wise to look elsewhere this week. This just has the feel of one of those tournaments where we get an unexpected winner, doesn’t it? A relatively new course for most of the players, short enough to not eliminate anyone on the basis of length, quirky design elements, possible high winds… it feels like anybody’s ballgame. With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Denny McCarthy (39.0)- This is the perfect type of event for a young, talented player to break through, and with six top-10s since 2019 and a budding reputation as one of the best putters in the world, McCarthy certainly fits the mold. And unlike most of the field this week, McCarthy has tasted a bit of success at Port Royal, finishing 15th in this tournament last year after closing with rounds of 65-68. His putting is what gets all the accolades– and with good reason, given that he led the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained Putting last season– but McCarthy is also a nifty iron player who is especially deadly from 125 yards and in, ranking near the top in all ball-striking stats from that range. So he’s a great fit at Port Royal and is just two starts removed from a T6 at the Sanderson Farms Championship, which means there shouldn’t be any concerns about his form or confidence. At nearly 40/1, McCarthy is one to watch this week.
Scott Stallings (70.0)- Stallings may not be the longest guy out there, but that won’t hurt him at Port Royal, and assuming he can find fairways he’ll be able to lean on the most reliable part of his game– precision iron play. Currently sitting at 12th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green, Stallings has long had a reputation as one of the best in the world with the shovels in his hands, and he seemed to be comfortable at Port Royal last year, opening with a 66 and closing with a 67 en route to an 18th-place showing. He closed the 2019-20 season in good form and looks to have carried it over to the start of this season, finding the top-10 at the Sanderson Farms Championship two weeks ago after shooting 9-under over the weekend. Stallings has tasted victory before, and with a field bereft of big-name talent and a course where he has proven he can succeed, he profiles as more dangerous than usual this week. I’m happy to take a chance on him at a price like 70.0.
Brian Stuard (94.0)- After a rough patch over the summer that included a pack of missed cuts and no top-30 finishes, Stuard seems to have found his game again over the past few weeks, finishing 3rd at the Safeway Open last month, his highest finish on Tour since 2018, and opening with a 64 at the Shriners in his last start. Much of his recent success can be attributed to the fact that he’s been rolling the rock at a career-best pace, ranking 15th on Tour in putting average and 8th in one-putt percentage. There are other, less obvious reasons to like Stuard this week: despite growing up on the bentgrass of Michigan, his best results as a pro have come on Bermuda grass, and he’s also had a fair amount of success on tropical/coastal courses, racking up multiple top-10s in Hawaii and a top-5 at Mayakoba. He played this event last year and made the cut, so he has a degree of familiarity with Port Royal, and this year he comes in red-hot with the flat stick and three starts removed from a top-5, making him my favorite long-odds option on the board this week.
