It’s a par 3, but it plays 235 yards. There’s plenty of bailout right, but the entire left side of the hole looks like it’s hanging on the edge of a cliff. The green is guarded by a couple of bunkers wrapping around the left side.
It’s the 16th hole at Port Royal Golf Club, the host venue for the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship, and it’s a true test of nerves and focus.
Seamus Power won the Bermuda event in 2022, and for him that week, the 16th shaped up quite nicely, as he circled a 2 on his card each of the first three days.
“I think a lot of that hole is just trust. Even yesterday in the practice round, you’re aiming, you’re pretty much aiming to the edge of the ocean and trying to hit a draw further into the ocean to hit the green,” he said ahead of this year’s event. “The wind, you’re so exposed there, the wind is whipping across. I think that’s the difficult part is just trusting that you actually need to start it that far left.
Alex Smalley plays a shot on the 16th hole during the third round of the 2021 Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course. (Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
“I’ve played here enough and I’ve hit enough shots there to know that it will come back, but I think that’s the biggest thing that somewhere in your mind you’re worried it’s not going to come back, it’s going to end up in the hazard left.
“It’s very rare you see a ball actually end up left. You almost have to try and miss the green left to hit the green, it’s just that exposed and the ball just starts going sideways there.”
Power did bogey the 16th in the final round in 2022, but his record 28 birdies that week guided him to a one-shot victory over Thomas Detry.
Port Royal, a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design that opened in Southampton, Bermuda, in 1970, ranks 28th on the Golfweek’s Best Top 50 courses in Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic islands and Central America.
Take a look at some photos of the 16th hole.
