Port Royal Is a Pitch-and-Putt Until the Wind Says Otherwise

Butterfield Bermuda Championship · Oct 22–25, 2026 · Port Royal Golf Course, Southampton · Par 71 · 6,828 yds · Purse $6M

On the scorecard, Port Royal looks like a course the PGA TOUR should eat alive. It was the shortest course on the 2025 TOUR schedule: 6,828 yards, par 71, three par 5s, and no par 4 longer than 458 yards.

Then you check the winning scores, and they tell you this isn't a course story. It's a weather story.

That's a 12-shot swing between the lowest and highest winning scores on the same 6,828 yards. Same Robert Trent Jones layout, same Bermudagrass greens. What changes is how hard the Atlantic is blowing.

Last November it blew hard. Final-round winds were sustained at 25–35 mph with gusts to 45, and the TOUR moved tee times up to avoid the worst of it. Schenk closed with an even-par 71, making one birdie and four par saves, and won by a shot in his 243rd TOUR start. Even par won the day. That's Port Royal when it bites.

Calm Port Royal is a wedge-and-putter shootout. Short par 4s, gettable par 5s, and winners as low as −24.

Windy Port Royal is a survival test. The wind is the defense, and the closing stretch from 13 to 18 decides the week.

As of Tuesday, Oct 20, the major weather models (ECMWF, GFS and ICON, via Open-Meteo) all have the wind building into the weekend:

These are model forecasts two to five days out, and they will move. If they hold, the weekend looks closer to last year's final round than to a −24 shootout.

The 2025 hole data is useful here because it was a hard week. Any hole that still gave up birdies in that wind is a hole you have to cash in on. (Figures below are from our hole-by-hole data for the full 2025 field, all four rounds.)

• No. 7 (par 5, 517 yds). The second-easiest hole on the course last year: about a 36% birdie-or-better rate and a 4.82 scoring average.
• No. 17 (par 5, 507 yds). The easiest hole on the course (4.51 average, 57% birdie or better). It's also the last real birdie chance before 18, which makes it a pressure hole on Sunday. Schenk's 6-foot birdie try spun out here in the final round.
• No. 2 (par 5, 553 yds). The longest hole on the course still averaged under par (4.93).
• Nos. 5, 10 and 11. These par 4s all played under par. No. 11 is 443 yards and still averaged 3.83.

Put it together: the par 5s and the shorter par 4s are where you make your score. The field will birdie them. Contenders have to birdie them and then not give the shots back.

No. 15 (par 4, 412 yds), the hardest hole of 2025. It averaged 4.45, nearly half a shot over par, with about 40% of the field making bogey or worse. It isn't long. It played hardest anyway. On Sunday the leader dropped a shot here when a 6-footer for par didn't fall.

No. 16 (par 3, 235 yds), the signature hole. The green sits right up against the ocean. In 2025 about 32% of the field made bogey or worse there, with just 8.6% birdies and a 3.30 average, second-hardest overall. Even the winner hit onto the side of a hill and had to chip to 3 feet to save par.

No. 18 (par 4, 410 yds). About 27% bogey or worse. Schenk's winning par came after his approach went just over the green and he putted through the fringe off a tight lie.

Don't overlook the other long par 3s, either. No. 8 (213 yds) and No. 13 (235 yds) ranked fourth and third in difficulty, with 27–29% of the field making bogey or worse and birdie rates of 5–8%.

Add it up. Port Royal's long par 3s are a tax. Three of the four par 3s sit among the four hardest holes, and they play 213–235 yards to wind-exposed targets. Lose a shot to the field on each of them and you've given back the par-5 birdies.

1. Long-iron and hybrid approach. Three of the four par 3s play 213–235 yards, so proximity from 200+ yards matters here.
2. Flight control in wind. Lower, flatter trajectories hold up better when it blows.
3. Scrambling. In wind, everyone misses greens. Schenk's final round was four par saves and one birdie.
4. Wedge scoring when it's calm. If the wind lays down, the birdie-makers inside 150 yards take over.
5. Short putts in wind. Schenk holed nervy 6- to 8-footers on 12 and 14 on Sunday to stay in front.

The field is 120 players. Adam Schenk defends, and five past champions are back: Brendon Todd (2019), Seamus Power (2022), Camilo Villegas (2023), Rafael Campos (2024) and Schenk (2025). Ben James, No. 1 in the 2026 PGA TOUR University ranking, arrives with three top-five finishes in his last three starts. Austin Lemieux, son of Mario Lemieux, makes his TOUR debut after a 66 in the open qualifier.

One more note for Thursday: all seven past champions were three or more shots back after the first round.

Port Royal isn't a bomber's course, and it isn't just a putting contest either. It's a par-3-and-wind course that hands everyone birdies on the par 5s, so the week is decided by who loses the fewest shots on 8, 13, 15, 16 and 18.

If the forecast holds and the weekend blows, expect a winning score closer to 2025 than to 2023, and favor ball-strikers who can scramble. If it calms down, expect a shootout and favor the birdie-makers.