If Augusta National Golf Club is the PGA Tour’s model of Daytona International Speedway, then Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Bermuda, is golf’s reply to Bristol Motor Speedway.
Bristol, the iconic NASCAR short observe in Tennessee, measures just 0.533 miles around its concrete oval, incomes it the proud distinction of the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile.” Its steep grandstands, tight confines and thunderous acoustics have impressed a assortment of nicknames. “The Last Great Colosseum” captures its stadium-like ambiance. “Thunder Valley” evokes the roar of engines reverberating around the bowl. And after successful the 2018 Night Race, NASCAR Hall of Famer Kurt Busch supplied perhaps the final tribute, calling Bristol “The Holy Grail of Short Tracks.”
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Port Royal has a related capability for chaos. At 6,828 yards, it is a bull ring of motion, one of just three programs measuring under 7,000 yards on the PGA Tour and the shortest of the bunch. Yet it is the longest of Bermuda’s 10 programs and one of only two public golf programs on the island.
Like Bristol, Port Royal does not need much room to ship a heavyweight struggle.
Its winding fairways are bordered by blooming oleander and whispering casuarina pines, while its hilltop greens body spectacular views of turquoise water, craggy coral formations, swaying palms and pastel cottages with white roofs. The back 9 is usually thought of the more scenic half, significantly the views of Hamilton Harbour from the eleventh and twelfth holes. It is also the more demanding, with winds ceaselessly sweeping in from the west and turning seemingly easy photographs into workout routines in creativeness and restraint.
For Seamus Power, the 2022 Butterfield Bermuda champion, Port Royal is a triumph of design over distance. The course’s comparatively modest yardage is no safety against an ocean breeze that can rework the same gap from a scoring alternative into a survival take a look at.
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“The course is kind of designed for it, which I like. It kind of helps you picture some of the shots with wind directions,” said Power, noting he’s hit both sand wedge and 3-wood for his second shot at the 517-yard par-5 seventh gap. “I’ve seen it in all different winds at this point and it’s just fun, all sorts of different shots here, uphill and down, makes it fun to play, makes it challenging, but it’s kind of enjoyable.”
Enjoyable, definitely. Forgiving, not essentially.Power made a tournament-record 28 birdies en route to his victory. But Port Royal turns nasty when the wind blows in from the Atlantic Ocean and the solar gives approach to rain. During last yr’s event, Port Royal rolled its shoulders and stirred awake, an disagreeable mixture of howling winds, gusting to 35 miles per hour, which despatched scores ballooning on Sunday. Last yr’s closing spherical produced a discipline average of 73.12, the highest single-day mark in the occasion’s historical past.
“You had to really control the flight and the spin of your golf ball and that’s stuff I’m usually pretty good at doing,” said defending champion Adam Schenk, who hung on for a one-stroke victory, his first Tour title.
That capacity could show important again this week. The forecast calls for sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph from Friday through Sunday, with showers also expected. At Port Royal, controlling trajectory and spin is more than a technical train; it is a prerequisite for retaining the ball in play. The numbers bear that out. Players hit just 52.71 p.c of fairways in 2025, making Port Royal the sixth-toughest course on Tour for discovering the short grass.
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The course’s compact dimensions can be misleading. Six of its 11 par 4s measure fewer than 400 yards, and none stretches beyond 460. But distance is hardly the level. Port Royal asks gamers to handle angles, flight the ball beneath the wind and choose how much bother lurks beyond a inexperienced or along a fairway’s edge.
The par 3s, in specific, can flip the spherical on its head.
No. 16 is the standout menace, demanding a tee shot of roughly 235 yards to a slender spit of land that seems to dangle over the ocean. It is the type of gap that can make even the world’s best golfers rethink their profession selections.
“That could easily be the toughest hole you’ll ever play in your life,” Ernie Els once said.
A common view of palm trees in the wind during the closing spherical of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship 2025 at Port Royal Golf Course on November 16, 2025 in Southampton, Bermuda.
A marker on the back tee commemorates Lucas Glover’s victory in the now-defunct PGA Grand Slam of Golf, an occasion that includes that season’s 4 main champions. Glover’s inscription captures the psychological toll of the gap as effectively as any yardage ebook ever could: “Man, I’ve never been more nervous over a shot.”
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PGA Tour University grad Ben James, who hasn’t completed outside the prime 5 in his previous three Tour begins, has a easy strategy for handling 16.
“I just plan on hitting a good shot, there’s nothing much else you can do,” James said. “It’s all depending on the wind direction. It’s going to swirl pretty much all week and be different directions every day, just take what I can get and see what happens.”
At Port Royal, that may be the wisest strategy of all. Preparation issues, but so does accepting that the wind gets a vote.
And even when gamers discover the inexperienced, the ordeal may not be over. The mixture of rain, wind, elevation modifications and grain — all the parts that pester right this moment’s Trackman professionals — can make Port Royal’s placing surfaces every bit as intimidating as its uncovered tee photographs. Matt Fitzpatrick, who is not in the discipline this week, found as much when he performed the course in 2021.
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Reflecting on a first-round journey at the ninth, Fitzpatrick described the unnerving prospect of a five-footer for birdie adopted by a foot-and-a-half putt for par.
“I was scared to death of it,” he said. “I honestly didn’t know what to do, I’ve never had a putt like it.”
At Port Royal, even a short putt can become a small disaster of religion. There is a story, too, about a caddie who once suggested his participant that a putt broke toward the water.
The participant paused before delivering a completely affordable objection.
“But we’re on an island,” he said.
“I know,” the caddie replied. “A perfect read.”
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It is the form of exchange that belongs at Port Royal, where the ocean is never distant, the wind hardly ever follows instructions and the shortest route to the gap is not always the easiest.
Like Bristol, Port Royal does not need size to ship drama. It wants only a little wind, a few uncovered greens and a golfer who thinks he has everything figured out.
Adam Schupak is a senior author for Golfweek, overlaying the PGA Tour.
This article initially appeared on Golfweek: Why professionals worry Bermuda’s Port Royal golf course, the Bristol Speedway of the PGA Tour
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