Seamus Power: 'I'm not like Rory, my No 1 goal is to keep my card on the PGA Tour'
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Those in the Bermuda tourism board will smile warmly and tell you the island enjoys gentle tradewinds that swirl in off all sides of the Atlantic. After nine holes of a punishing Pro-Am tune-up on Wednesday, Séamus Power might suggest a tweak in the marketing language.
There was little gentle about the northerlies that whipped across Port Royal Golf Club in the morning hours as Power got out nice and early to lean into conditions which made for links golf done the wild Atlantic way.
This week at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship the Waterford native is about as close to home as he’ll get for the foreseeable future. Power is also on familiar turf, returning to a place where he notched the second PGA Tour title of his career in October 2022, a win which also counts as his last. Injury robbed him of his chance to defend last year, a four-month absence due to a ‘scary’ hip issue carving a chunk out of his campaign.
A year on, he belatedly returns to Bermuda and while physically recuperated, the climb continues. Power left the island in 2022 with a trophy, the biggest paycheque of his life and a new career-high world ranking of 28th. He’s back with the number 116 after his name. But that doesn’t quite reflect the groove he’s been finding of late. Perhaps the island air currents will prove apt this week, matching the freshness about Power’s game.
“It's a strange season because I've made improvements in areas of my game that I wanted to,” Power said on Wednesday. “But then typical golf stuff, my strengths before kind of went a little backwards. [I’ve] ended up with positive stats across the board, but no real highlight stuff.
“I didn't play in the Playoffs last year so I was rusty early. I felt like I lost a bit of confidence in the putter and that's been my strength on Tour, so that was slow coming out of the gates. I played very nicely from the middle of the summer onwards.
“I still haven't had those high finishes which has been a little disappointing. Especially in the fall it’s been very consistent, a lot of good stuff, but not really those great weeks which can turn your season around. I've got two more chances.”
While so many of the leading lights of the PGA Tour have been enjoying downtime since the Tour Championship in September, Power has instead got particularly productive. His biggest payday of the year came in the Playoffs with a top-10 finish at the St Jude in late August. He’s followed that with back-to-back tied-11th finishes and a tie for 13th last time out at the Zozo Championship, $985,000 added to the coffers across five events.
The rediscovered consistency is invaluable. There are other tangible gains. As so many scramble to keep cards in this Fall Cup phase, Power is close to locking up a top-60 finish in the FedEx Cup rankings and with it an AON Next 10 tag, meaning entry to mega-money signature events early next season. In a 2025 campaign which he hopes will continue the rejuvenation, a Ryder Cup looms on the horizon too.
“I feel like I'm in a very good spot now,” the 37-year-old added. “Two goals for the fall was try to win an event and to lock up that Top 60. It looks like I'm in a really good spot for one of those. It's such a big deal. You need to be in at least some of those elevated events. So that Top 60, getting into Pebble [Beach] and LA [The Genesis] will be huge. It really kept me very motivated in the fall.”
Compatriots and close friends Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy are busy in the Persian Gulf this week, competing at the DP World Tour Championship. For Power, who left West Waterford for a scholarship at East Tennessee State in 2006, almost half of his life has now been spent Stateside. If there are faint whispers of home whistling in off the Atlantic too this week, they wouldn’t be unfamiliar. Yet the PGA Tour remains his absolute focus.
“It's always tricky. I've always said this — I would have loved to have played more in Europe,” Power admitted. "But for me, I'm not on the level of some of those — obviously like the likes of Rory can play both tours because he racks up so many points in majors and when he goes to Europe he has wins or he's close to winning and he wins over here.
“It’s just different for me. Realistically, every year I'm starting out, my No.1 goal is to keep my card on the PGA Tour. It's been an amazing experience to play on the Tour for me and I'm trying to extend that as long as I can.
“If I got to a point where I come out early next year [and] win, especially an elevated event, you'd love to go play more [in Europe]. DP World Tour has been great to me the last few years, they've given me some spots. Obviously for me getting to play closer to home, it's cool. But it's always going to be tough. You're trying to keep your job and for me the best way of doing that, at least for the foreseeable future, is going to keep my card. I love playing professional golf so I'm going to play wherever I can.”
