Three weeks ago, Austin Smotherman was the feel-good story of the fall: ten years as a pro and 100 PGA Tour starts before his first win. On Monday morning in Bermuda he won again. It turns out the hard part was the first one.
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The Wind Won Sunday
The Butterfield Bermuda Championship never got a final round. Gusts topped 40 mph at Port Royal on Sunday morning, none of the 72 players who made the cut could tee off, and officials eventually gave up and made it a 54-hole event. That left Smotherman and Séamus Power tied at 16 under and sent them back out Monday for a sudden-death playoff on Port Royal’s famous par-3 16th, the one perched on the cliffs above the ocean. No pressure.
Three Trips to the Same Par 3
The first time through, Smotherman missed the green right and Power hit an 8-iron to 25 feet. Smotherman got up and down from the fringe, and Power’s birdie putt slid by. That was the Irishman’s best chance, and he knew it.
They both parred it again. On the third trip, Smotherman found the green with an 8-iron. Power’s tee shot didn’t, and he left himself a nasty lie in the rough, couldn’t get up and down, and made bogey. Smotherman two-putted from 14 feet, tapped in the last one from two feet, and summed it up in four words: “I’m still shaking.”
From 100 Starts to Back-to-Back
At the Bank of Utah Championship on Oct. 4, Smotherman closed with a 68 at Black Desert to win by two over Doug Ghim. Twenty-two days later he has two PGA Tour titles, back-to-back wins, and, according to ESPN, a spot in next year’s U.S. Open that comes with the second win. That’s how quickly a career can turn over once someone stops wondering whether they belong.
Ball nerds, take note: he did it with the same ball both times. GolfWRX’s winning bag reports list a Titleist Pro V1x in Utah and in Bermuda, a ball Titleist says he switched to at the start of 2025. In Utah it wasn’t even the new 2027 version that Titleist is handing out on tour right now. Doug Ghim had that one, and he finished second.
The Bermuda Connection
Smotherman has history here. He opened the 2022 Bermuda Championship with a 62 and shared the first-round lead, then didn’t win. Four years later, the island got its revenge on everyone but him: it blew the final round away, made him wait overnight, and still couldn’t stop the Austin Smotherman Bermuda Championship story from getting a happy ending.
He needed a decade to win once and three weeks to win twice. Golf makes no sense, and that’s why we keep paying green fees.
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