Defending champion Adam Schenk is back at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship but with low expectations, acknowledging that his 2026 season was not quite what he had envisaged.

After a difficult mid-season stretch featuring six consecutive missed cuts on the PGA Tour, he finally shed his winless title by capturing the championship in 2025. It took 243 starts as a professional for him to claim his first PGA Tour title. Ahead of the first round at Port Royal Golf Course, the 34-year-old opened up on his shaky 2026 season.

“Golf's been not great but everything outside of golf's been absolutely phenomenal,” said Shenk.

“So I guess the stuff that's extra important, family and all that is -- has been great. I still care a lot about golf and the results and the scores that I'm posting, and they've been pretty abysmal this year, if that's even a word, but I feel like I'm getting back on the right track and this would be a great week to start that trend.”

Schenk's 2026 season started off with two missed cuts and was followed by 13 more scattered throughout his schedule. He earned just $433,660, and stayed for the weekend in 33.3 percent of his tournaments.

“Two, three years not great results after my best year ever making East Lake,” Schenk told reporters in Bermuda.

His ‘best year ever’ came before. He found himself at East Lake in 2023 and climbed leaderboards that season, most notably when he lost in a playoff to Emiliano Grillo at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial. It was his best season in eight years on the American circuit.

“But I still believe. I've been working hard,” continued Schenk.

Schenk pulled out of the Wyndham Championship during the second round in August due to a lower-back issue, only making his return at the Biltmore Championship in mid-September. Though the setback came after several missed cuts had already accumulated, the injury resulted in a loss of both playing time and earnings.

“Figured out some stuff the last couple of months, especially the last couple of weeks so I'm excited going forward," Shenk added more positively. "I'm able to swing the club a little freer, not have to worry about some of the misses, which has been very freeing.

“So a couple shots I've been fighting this year, I don't feel I have to fight those as much anymore so that makes me really excited for this week and for the rest of the year and for next year."