Bermuda Preview

Silly season hits its peak when we get to Bermuda and a look at the names atop the odds board definitely makes that hit home this week. We could also look at the last couple of champions of this event and see that truly anyone can win in Bermuda.

The main question when thinking about this event is - will it be windy? Yes or no?

It looks like a resounding YES this week which is something we will want to monitor until go time. But overall, this forecast screams windy conditions and wave split possibilities. The story this week will be the wind, and with it we need to assess how this course plays in testier wind conditions.

The best example of this type of weather is probably the year Herbert won (-15) where it was a pure distance + scramble fest but last year we saw enough wind to keep everyone not named Campos to just -16 or worse. It seems likely we will see a winning score in that Herbert range this week. The question is what will the statistical keys be?

It will almost certainly be a uniquely heavy short game emphasis.

That’s something we see in most years here but especially in the blustery conditions which can make certain greens nearly un-hittable. This is a spot where there is very, very little asked of the driver and when the wind blows it becomes a bit of crapshoot with the iron play. This naturally shifts a lot of the points of differentiation to the short game elements during the event. When we look to incoming statistical profiles of the winners here we can see that it’s a shockingly low emphasis on ball striking.

Let’s take a look at the L25 SG APP + SG OTT totals for the recent winners here:

Campos

SG APP: -0.3

SG OTT: -0.6

SG BS: -0.9

Villegas

SG APP: -0.4

SG OTT: -1.1

SG BS: -1.5

Power

SG APP: -0.8

SG OTT: +0.0

SG BS: -0.8

Herbert

SG APP: +0.4

SG OTT: +0.3

SG BS: +0.7

Gay

SG APP: -1.0

SG OTT: -0.3

SG BS: -1.3

AVERAGE

SG APP: -0.4

SG OTT: -0.3

SG BS: -0.7

Those are truly, truly shocking lead in ball striking figures for an extended set of winners and it makes it clear how little incoming ball striking form matters here.

Add in the winds this week and it will be a total focus on your ability to chip, make putts on Bermuda, and handle the wind. That’s it.

As we said last week, that doesn’t mean we intentionally look for the worst ball strikers but there is a correlation between bad ball striking and having above Tour average upside with the short game. Those type of players have an incredibly rare opportunity to contend in this event. For many, it is probably the only course on Tour they can truly contend at. Again, all they have to do is chip, make putts on Bermuda, and handle the wind.

A good way to judge handling the wind here is to have handled the wind here before and that is a reason Course History does carry a bit more weight here than we’d think. It isn’t a place where you need incredible course history but it’s conditions like these where I think history matters a bit more. Having comfort in the winds on these holes will carry extra weight especially in your ability to make putts in the crosswinds. A strong example of this would be Brian Gay being a course merchant here. On the flip side though would Lucas Herbert did win here on debut. That said, Herbert is one of the best wind golfers in the world.

All in all, this was one of the hardest COMP sets to put together for the season. That’s probably best seen in the fact that it’s the most courses to ever make up the COMP set (7). But, it speaks to the varied history of winners here and the challenge it is to find a lot of overlapping venues with this little ball striking emphasis so they have to be pieced together. The most consistent spot to lean on though is likely the RSM at Sea Island. There is not a perfect comp for a place that skews this heavily away from good ball strikers but Sea Island has similar enough numbers. Brian Gay has a 3rd there, Power a T4, and Villegas a T2.

But overall, it’s a place where anything can happen because, as we said, it’s been deduced to if can you chip, make putts on Bermuda, and handle the wind. There just aren’t many weeks on Tour - probably not any weeks - where that is the deciding factor and it’s how you end up with two astronomically priced winners in a row.