The remarkable rise of Seamus Power shows no sign of stopping as he moved into the top 50 in golf’s world rankings for the first time in his career.
The Waterford man reached that milestone with a share of third place at the Sony Open in Hawaii as Masters Champion Hideki Matsuyama came from five back to edge Russell Henley in a playoff in a thrilling Sunday showdown.
Power now has two months to consolidate his place in the top-50 and book his ticket to
Augusta National in April while he is also eyeing up a spot at the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake after jumping to 14th in the FedEx Cup standings.
“Yeah, it’s great. I think I’ll have probably my spot in the playoffs locked up after this week,” he said.
“That’s a nice one. It’s by far the earliest I’ve ever had it locked up before so it’s kind of new territory for me.
“The goal is to be in East Lake at the end of the year for the TOUR Championship, FedEx Cup Playoffs.
“That goal doesn’t change after this week. It’s just kind of just adds a couple points to my total, but a long ways to go.”
It has been a sensational rise from the Barbasol Champion, climbing a staggering 385 places in the last 12 months including a run of one win, six top-10s and seven top-25 finishes in his last 21 starts after starting 2021 with three missed cuts on the spin.
Although his second PGA Tour win didn’t materialise, the 2016 Olympian felt comfortable in the situation, with huge crowds swarming the fairways waiting for Matsuyama in the group behind.
“Yeah, it’s a lot better. Georgia in the autumn was the first time I played in the last group on a Sunday, so that was kind of cool.
“You definitely do get used to it. There were huge crowds behind us following Hideki, so it takes some getting used to. You have to wait for the crowd to stop and go.
“But, yeah, that’s a problem I’ll happily learn to deal with.”
Power shot a closing five-under 65 to finish four adrift of the top two, despite his approach play not being up to his usual high standard.
“It was poor [the iron play],” said Power. “I was a bit disappointed with it, but the putter kind of got hot, so it’s interesting.
“That’s golf sometimes, isn’t it?
“In my third round I feel like I didn’t miss a shot and couldn’t quite get putts going until the end, and in the final round I made a few nice putts so it kind of kept me going.”
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