After 242 career PGA Tour starts, five feet stood between Adam Schenk and the win he had spent his entire life dreaming of capturing. In the scoring tent, Chandler Phillips sat with his hat on backward, waiting for his fate to be delivered.
With the Bermuda wind whipping through Port Royal Golf Course, Schenk surveyed the line that could change everything — five feet to wipe away a season that saw him miss 15 cuts and rank 131 in Strokes Gained: Total.
Schenk gripped his putter, exhaled and rolled it into the center of the cup. As the ball disappeared, Schenk gave a fist pump and a celebratory roar.
“Just relief that it was so difficult, so a little bit of relief that it’s over with, and to finally get it done because it just seems like at some point or another I’ve been so close so many times,” Schenk said after winning the 2025 Butterfield Bermuda Championship. “Eventually you get it done or you don’t, and I’m only going to have so many more of these opportunities, especially if I would have lost in a four-, five-man playoff and still end up having to go to Q-School. Like that was just a massive putt for me to make, a massive putt to have go in. It’s somewhat life-changing.”
The win gives Schenk a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour, as well as a spot in the Players Championship and PGA Championship.
As Schenk’s emotions started to come out on the 18th green, back in the scoring tent, Phillips lightly hit the table with his fist and offered a small smile. He didn’t win, but a career-best finish has given him new life.
He entered the week in Bermuda just wanting his season to be over. He was 139th in the FedEx Fall standings and was almost certain he’d be headed back to the Korn Ferry Tour after a season of frustration. Like Schenk, who entered the week at 134, the path to maintaining his PGA Tour card was narrow: either win or finish high enough to move onto the other side of the top-100 bubble with one event to play.
“I only have one option and that’s to go out there and try to win because if I don’t, I’m not keeping my card,” Phillips said on Friday in Bermuda. “There’s not a lot of answers to it. There’s just one answer, it’s just go out there and try to ball out. If it happens, it happens. If not, you know, try to go fix what’s wrong for the year. To tell you the truth, I’m pretty over this year. Like it’s been a struggle, but I’m waiting for that finish line.”
But after three good rounds in Bermuda, that finish line Phillips was searching for started to change shape. A life-changing, career-altering win was within his grasp. All that stood in his way was Schenk and the blustery Bermuda conditions.
On Sunday, Phillips, whose best finish on the season was a T10 at the team event Zurich Classic, battled to try to catch Schenk. He made the turn in one under but made three bogeys on the back nine to fall two shots back with two to play. He made a clutch birdie on the par-5 17th to get within one and put the pressure on Schenk, but could only watch from the scoring tent as his best chance to win a PGA Tour event came up just short.
But Phillips’ disappointment quickly dissipated as his road to retaining his PGA Tour became a little less steep. With the runner-up finish, Phillips moved to 92nd in the standings with one tournament left.
“It’s hard to really get mad at anything,” Phillips said on Sunday. “Adam played obviously great, congrats to him. I’m just happy with my finish. If we would have been going to a playoff, that would have been better, but it’s hard to really even get mad about anything.
“I’m happy just to be inside the top-100 now. I know I’ve got one week left, but at least I’m not going into next week in the same position I was this week, looking at it like God, I’ve got to win to have a job out here. Hopefully I play pretty solid next week and see y’all next year.”
Back on the green, Schenk embraced his caddie after a win eight years in the making. A win that erased a year that saw him go through two separate stretches with six consecutive missed cuts. One that lifted a weight off Adam Schenk’s shoulders, gave him a new lease on PGA Tour life and showed there’s an unquantifiable value in perseverance.
And it can pay off when few see it coming.
“It’s slightly embarrassing, but at the end of the day, like 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,” Schenk said. “There is a method to the madness. It’s not always right, but that’s fine. I’d rather go down swinging, doing it my way, and learn along the way and take advice from a small circle.
“It’s just unbelievable that it finally came true. “
