Seamus Power explains why Bermuda wind is different from Ireland: the lie changes everything

Power's comments after round three

On 24 October 2026, Seamus Power discussed the conditions at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in comments reported by the official PGA Tour website. The Irishman, no stranger to playing in a breeze, acknowledged that Port Royal presents a different challenge: severe gusts interact with elevated positions and uneven lies. As Power put it, “Today was proper wind.”

Power shot a four-under 67 on Saturday, reaching 16 under through 54 holes to share the lead with Austin Smotherman. But the most revealing part of the post-round discussion was not the leaderboard. It was his explanation of why an instinctive response to a headwind does not always work on this golf course.

Wind cannot be separated from the lie

A player facing a headwind may normally try to launch the ball lower. Yet hitting from an upslope, or toward a target at a different elevation, can make the preferred launch window difficult to produce. Power highlighted that combination: the flight a golfer wants is not necessarily the flight the terrain allows.

That distinction matters at Port Royal. Wind direction is only one variable. The angle of the lie, elevation change, intended shape and likely miss can be just as important when choosing a club. The practical lesson is not simply to “keep it low”; it is to select a shot that can reliably be executed from the actual ball position.

The 17th hole illustrates the approach

At the par-five 17th, Power used a 5-wood both off the tee and into the green, working the ball on a hard draw against a crosswind from the left. He reached the putting surface and took two putts for birdie. Rather than chasing distance at any cost, he chose a controlled shape that gave him a realistic way to advance through difficult air.

Co-leader Smotherman experienced the conditions differently. He said the breeze intensified after the turn, prompting a deliberately simpler strategy. At the 16th, even a relatively controlled iron shot travelled far beyond its intended distance. Their experiences expose two linked responses to extreme wind: manage trajectory carefully and avoid unnecessary complexity.

The pressure behind the comments

Power entered the week 103rd in the FedExCup Fall standings, outside the top 100 who retain full playing privileges for the following PGA Tour season. Smotherman already has a two-year exemption following his recent win. Equal scores therefore do not mean equal stakes.

Nor does a two-shot cushion over the nearest challengers settle the tournament. Unpredictable gusts can change a leaderboard quickly. Power's most useful message is about decision-making rather than an assured outcome: familiar windy-weather instincts must be adjusted for the specific lie, terrain and available shot. The final-round result was not yet known when these comments were made.

Original source: PGA Tour, third-round report dated 24 October 2026, including direct comments from Seamus Power and Austin Smotherman.

Photograph: illustrative archival coastal-golf image from Portmarnock, Ireland, 2009. It does not show Bermuda's Port Royal or the 2026 tournament. William Murphy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Golf_Links_-Portmarnock(3498822930).jpg; licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/. Resized for web display.