Séamus Power will head to Sea Island in Georgia for the RSM Classic knowing that a top-two or top-three finish is likely required to remain a PGA Tour member for 2026 after a stuttering finish saw him drop out of contention at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
Amid extremely testing winds at Port Royal Golf Club, Power found himself two strokes off the lead with seven holes to play, but four bogeys in his final five holes – including three-in-a-row to finish – saw him slip back and end the week tied for 11th, only climbing four places to 129th in the FedEx Fall Rankings with the top 100 at the conclusion of next week’s event earning full tour cards for next season.
Tee times were moved up in anticipation of the strong winds, but it was still far from easygoing and Power, who’d started the day three off the lead, managed to birdie three of his first 11 holes, only dropping one shot and a second PGA Tour victory at Port Royal and third PGA Tour win overall was very much a possibility as he faced the closing stretch.
But he’ll be extremely disappointed not to have at least secured a top-six or top-seven finish that would’ve made the job this coming week all the more manageable.
Particularly disappointing will be the bogey on the par-5 17th, where he found the water with his second shot, but the way he battled to put himself in contention will give him confidence that he can repeat the feat next week and hope that the end result is a much more satisfactory one.
The man who braved the conditions better than anybody was American Adam Schenk, who finally broke through and became a PGA Tour winner at the 243rd time of asking.
Tied for the lead after 54 holes, Schenk was able to make one birdie in his first 14 holes, which was a solid start. He gave it back with a bogey on the par-4 15th but made three straight pars to come into the house for the win.
This was not the kind of season Schenk was looking for, or hoping for, as he had made just 11 cuts in 27 starts heading into the week. But the win catapulted him from No. 134 all the way to No. 67 in the FedExCup Fall standings – and not to mention a multi-year exemption on Tour, to boot.
“Unbelievable. Was really hoping this day would come at some point in my life. Never really know if it is. That’s what makes the journey so amazing, interesting, and it’s a surreal moment when it finally does,” Schenk said.
“Two sets of six missed cuts (in a row), I knew it was bad. I’ll go through and look at my results every once in a while. I’m like, ‘Wow, that was an impressively bad stretch of golf,’”he added. “It’s slightly embarrassing, but at the end of the day … I don’t want to say I don’t care what anybody thinks, but I have a belief in what I do and how I do things and that was, that was probably bigger than anything this week is just seeing that belief go through and how I do things.
“There is a method to the madness.”
Chandler Phillips took solo second at -11, and he jumped from 139th to 92nd in the rankings, with a further five sharing third at -10.
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