Butterfield Bermuda Championship 2026 Preview: 4 Picks

The PGA Tour crosses the Atlantic to Port Royal for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, a short coastal par 71 where the wind decides almost everything. It is also a week where our own model admits it has no idea what the course rewards, and saying so plainly changes how the card below was built.

A course our model cannot read

Our projections normally publish a demand profile for each venue, splitting the separation between players across driving, approach, around the green and putting. For Port Royal it returns 25 per cent for all four.

That is not a finding. It is the fallback the model uses when it has formed no view, and despite six editions of history here it has formed none. So every course-fit number on our board this week is uninformative, and we have said so on the card rather than quietly leaning on it.

What the course does reward is visible in its results. Winning scores across the six editions have ranged from 12 under to 24 under, and the difference is almost entirely the wind. Robert Trent Jones laid it out on the Atlantic coastline, it is short by tour standards, and holes exposed to the sea play very differently depending on the day. Power is not the test; managing the conditions is.

Our projection this week is 12 under with the cut around 2 under, from a field of 132. With the model blind on fit, that puts the weight on two things we can measure: who has handled this specific course before, and who actually converts good golf into high finishes.

The number the model is missing

Our projections measure strokes gained and stop there. They never ask whether a player turns that into top finishes, and on a weak autumn field that gap is wide enough to matter.

The model ranks Ben Kohles 2nd this week and Kevin Roy 7th. Across 2022 to 2026 they have converted at 9 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, with no wins between them. Kohles has also finished 61st, 57th and 39th in three visits to Port Royal. Both are off the card on that basis, and the career rates below were computed by hand from our own results because the model does not hold them.

Chris Kirk, 25/1, 1.5pt each-way

Kirk is model rank 3 of 132 and the most proven player on the card: 2 wins and 16 top-10s from 85 starts, a 19 per cent conversion rate. His form holds at plus 0.98 per round once his best week is removed, and there is a 10th and an 8th inside his last five starts.

The reservation is specific to this week. He has never played Port Royal, and on a course where the test is managing wind that our model cannot measure, having done it here before is worth more than usual.

Kevin Yu, 28/1, 1pt each-way

Yu has the best conversion rate among the realistic prices at 22 per cent, is model rank 4, and finished 3rd here in 2023, which shows the course can suit him. He is plus 1.54 per round over his last 16 rounds, holding at plus 1.08 with his best week out.

Two things to declare. He has missed the cut here in each of the last two years, so his venue record is a 3rd and a 30th set against two missed cuts. And this is his third straight week on our card, after a T32 and a T59.

Rico Hoey, 28/1, 1pt each-way

Hoey comes out best on the test we apply to every pick. He is plus 1.42 per round over his last 16 rounds and plus 1.24 with his best single week removed, the smallest drop of the four, so the form is spread rather than built on one good Thursday.

He has played Port Royal twice, finishing 17th and 22nd, so he has handled this wind before. A 10th inside his last five. Against him: no win in 60 starts and an 18 per cent conversion rate that is solid rather than striking.

Kevin Streelman, 70/1, 0.5pt each-way

Streelman is model rank 17 and the only player at 70/1 or longer with a record worth citing, with 3 top-3s among 7 top-10s from 65 starts.

This page should be straight that it is the weakest slot on the card. An 11 per cent conversion rate is poor by the standard applied to the other three, and he is here because the alternatives at this price were worse rather than because he is good value. He is backed to place at a price where placing pays for the week on its own.

The card

• Chris Kirk - 25/1 - 1.5pt each-way
• Kevin Yu - 28/1 - 1pt each-way
• Rico Hoey - 28/1 - 1pt each-way
• Kevin Streelman - 70/1 - 0.5pt each-way (longshot)

Correction, 26 October 2026: this preview originally gave the terms as bet365's standard outright column, 1/4 odds and 5 places, because the Each Way Extra prices were not available when it was written. That was wrong. Our house terms are 8 places at 1/5, which is what we strike and what the record settles at. It mattered here: Chris Kirk finished T6 at the Butterfield Bermuda, outside five places and inside eight. Each-way is two bets of the same size, so the card commits 8pts in total, and dead-heat rules apply on shared places. One thing still to put right: the prices quoted on this page are from that 5-place column and run roughly ten per cent longer than the 8-place price we actually take, so treat them as the upper bound rather than the struck price.

Ben James is the outright favourite at 11/1 with nothing else inside 25/1, and he is the model's number one as well. Leaving him out is a staking decision rather than a view on his chance.

Every selection is settled in public, win or lose. The running profit and loss is on the Tipster Picks track record, and the event is on the Butterfield Bermuda Championship hub.