The walk from the shadows into the spotlight hasn’t affected Séamus Power. No giant ego, no swollen head. Feet kept firmly on the ground, for real.
Indeed, a measure of his grounded self is that Power – who has moved on from his latest tournament win in Bermuda to get going again in the Mayakoba Championship in Mexico – will reach out and listen to wise counsel from his peers in determining where his onward career journey will take him, with reset goals and new targets.
As the Waterford man, now a multiple career winner on the PGA Tour, put it, “I still have other big goals for the season. I will reset them obviously, at least to a certain extent, but I want to finish the season in the top-25 in the world, I want to make Ryder Cup, and I’ve never got to the Tour Championship so that’s another big one that I want to reach.”
Speaking from the Mayakoba on a video call, Power – whose win in the Butterfield Bermuda Championship propelled him to a career-best 32nd in the world rankings and into the Ryder Cup qualifying mix – identified former Ryder Cup captains Paul McGinley and Pádraig Harrington, along with the 2023 captain Luke Donald, as voices he would listen to in determining what actions would be taken in his own best interests in reaching those goals.
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“It’s a tricky balance,” said Power of juggling playing on the PGA Tour and also chasing a Ryder Cup spot. “I’m going to talk to Luke and ask him, because obviously he played a lot of his career in the US too, so I feel like he’s going to be a good one to talk to . . . . and I’m going to try to talk to Paul and Pádraig as well, both being captains before, and what they would like to see from a guy who’s based in the US but sill wants to play in the Ryder Cup and what they would like to see. Before I finalise any schedule I’m definitely going to talk to those guys and see what we come up with.”
The immediate schedule for the coming weeks is set in stone – playing in the Mayakoba and then the RSM Classic at Sea Island in a fortnight which will finish out his year’s work – but the situation is more unclear from January (the Sentry Tournament of Champions is a definite but it is the following weeks, with the Hero Cup team event in Abu Dhabi the same week as the Sony Open where he finished third this year) that needs greater analysis.
Of the new team event, a reinvention of the Seve Trophy under the Hero Cup brand, Power admitted: “It might help Luke to figure out some ideas for partnerships and even just having guys get to know each other a little bit more and that sort of stuff for the Ryder Cup. So it will be something that will be very cool to be part of it.”
What is different is that Power has the security of tenure to make those decisions; the win in Bermuda extending his PGA Tour status to the end of 2025 and with no need, as he describes it, of “looking over my shoulder” in any feelings of insecurity.
Now it’s the opposite, of kicking forward with security and confidence. And, having played in all four Majors in 2022 for the first time in his career, his appetite to contend on that stage has been well and truly whetted.
“Obviously the microscope is bigger and the pressure is going to be a lot bigger,” said Power of the Majors. “But I saw last summer my game hold up really well. I felt like I played very well in the Masters, couldn’t get my putter going, but I really felt I played very well in the US Open and the PGA. To see my game hold up under those kind of conditions, it was very encouraging.
“Yeah, I feel like I can (win), obviously depending on the courses and that sort of stuff, but I feel like if I can get myself in a good spot I should have at least an opportunity to win on Sunday. I haven’t really experienced that in a Major yet so who knows, but that’s definitely a goal. So to get there, as people say, give yourself a chance with nine holes to go and see what happens.”
For the record, next year’s four Majors – with Power set for all four – will be played at Augusta National (Masters); Oak Hill CC in Rochester, New York (US PGA); Los Angeles CC (US Open); and Royal Liverpool GC (The Open).
Whichever way he looks at things, the present and the future is bright. And with the Dropkick Murphys, a Celtic punk band out of Boston, serenading him with a parody of the Wild Rover which went viral – “I absolutely loved it” – it would seem that, after years getting to where he is, Power is quickstepping to a different beat these days.
