After last week’s event in Japan, the PGA Tour is once again off the shores of the USA. This week, players will do battle in Bermuda, at Port Royal Golf Club, located in the parish of Southampton.
Bermuda Championship General Information:
- Date: October, 28 – October, 31 2021
- TV-Time: Golf Channel 1:30 p.m. ET
- Venue: Port Royal Golf Club
- Location: Southampton, Bermuda
- Prize Money: $6,500,000 ($1,125,000 1st Place)
- Winner last year: Brian Gay
Tournament, Conditions & Course Info
This will the third renewal of this event, which was won last year by Brian Gay, who returns this time around to defend his crown. The remainder of the field is filled with a mix of top-tier talent, big-names from the past and some newbies. Most of those in the upper echelons of the world rankings miss out, with Patrick Reed and Mathew Fitzpatrick being the only players currently inside the top 30 to feature.
A Par 71 that is on the short side, Port Royal is certainly a course that can be attacked, though that’s not to say that scoring will be easy. What the Robert Trent Jones track lacks in distance it makes up for in tight fairways, which demand clever shot selection and accuracy off the tee. There are some reachable Par 5’s but even they demand accuracy and can punish waywardness.
With the course being located in Bermuda, which is famous for its tropical climate, rain is often incoming, and it certainly has been in recent days, meaning that the ground should have some dig in it, while the greens should be on the softer side.
Expert Pick #1 – Mito Pereira Top 10 Finish @+240
PGA Tour rookie Mito Pereira is already starting to look like the real deal, and in a field of this nature, he must go down as a big player, one who has a huge opportunity to increase his relevance at this level.
The 26-year-old Chilean has made a very pleasing start to life on golf’s premier tour, finishing third at the Fortinet Championship and following up with two solid efforts, making the cut at both the Sanderson Farms and the Shriners. In 12 rounds, Pereira, who has already is yet to shoot above 71, while he’s posted eight sub-70 rounds. Add in that he currently ranks as the number two player on tour in terms of strokes gained: tee-to-green and the man in form rates as an excellent top-ten candidate here.
Fedex Cup Rank: 15 | Fedex Cup Points: 229 | OWGR: 90
Expert Pick #2 – Denny McCarthy Top 10 Finish @+500
American Denny McCarthy has had a bit of an up and down start to the new campaign. He started by missing the cut at the Fortinet, before playing some excellent stuff to secure a T17 finish at the Sanderson Farms, though he failed to get going in Vegas at the Shriners, missing the cut. Such form stats don’t exactly jump off the page, but we shouldn’t be put off.
The 28-year-old doesn’t lack accuracy off the tee, ranking 24th for driving accuracy on tour right now, which bodes well ahead of this week’s test, while this is a venue where he’s played some of his best stuff over the last couple of years. In 2019, McCarthy played his way to a T15 finish, building on that a year later, finishing fourth in 2020. A repeat of either of those efforts, in a less than top-quality field, should see the University of Virginia graduate place highly once again.
Fedex Cup Rank: 86 | Fedex Cup Points: 43 | OWGR: 236
Expert Pick #3 – Russell Knox Top 20 Finish @+250
Russell Knox hasn’t exactly set the world alight during the early weeks of the new campaign, finishing T58, T29 and missing the cut, though he steps into calmer waters here, while the 36-year-old has form at this venue.
Back in 2019, Knox posted a very respectable 11th place finish, while he followed up last year with a similarly solid effort, finishing T16. On both of those occasions the Scotsman played some pleasing golf and showed a liking for this sort of test, and with many, many big players missing from this line-up, there’s no reason as to why he cannot do well again, especially since this is not the only coastal course where he has form, posting a string of high finished a venues such as Harbour Town, Pebble Beach and Waialae over the last five or six seasons.
Fedex Cup Rank: 106 | Fedex Cup Points: 34 | OWGR: 281
2021 Bermuda Championship Odds
*Odds as of Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. ET
| Player | Odds |
| Matthew Fitzpatrick | +1100 |
| Christiaan Bezuidenhout | +1400 |
| Patrick Reed | +1800 |
| Mito Pereira | +2000 |
| Hayden Buckley | +2500 |
| Seamus Power | +3000 |
| Adam Hadwin | +3000 |
| Matthias Schwab | +3300 |
| Chad Ramey | +4000 |
| Danny Willett | +4000 |
You won’t win anything for being long this week, so big hitters have no advantage, but those who can be accurate and plot their way round the tight track at Port Royal might just have the upper hand. The in-form Mito Pereira, who has made a strong start to life at this level since graduating from the Korn Ferry Tour, appears to have a chance to go close, while both Russell Knox and Denny McCarthy can do well too, having thrived at this venue in recent years.
