Tag: Akshay Bhatia

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Teen Akshay Bhatia hits all 18 greens at Pebble, shoots 64

Akshay Bhatia, 19, hit all 18 greens and shot a bogey-free 64 to start the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Thursday.

Entering this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, only three golfers in the last 25 years had hit all 18 greens in regulation in a tournament round at famed Pebble Beach Golf Links. Make it four.

Akshay Bhatia, a 19-year-old who hails from North Carolina and is playing this week on a sponsor exemption, became the first to do so since Ryan Palmer in 2008 en route to shooting a bogey-free 8-under 64 in the opening round and in a tie for third with Norway’s Henrik Norlander, two strokes behind leader Patrick Cantlay, who tied the course record of 62.

Bhatia, who started on the back nine and switched from an arm-lock length putter to a shorter model, opened with three birdies before exploding for five birdies in his final eight holes, including sticking his second shot at the difficult par-4 eighth hole to inside 3 feet.

Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Leaderboard | Photos | Tee times, TV info

“I was peeling an orange and it was so bad that I was just thinking about the orange and my caddie goes, ‘OK, we got 207.’ I said, ‘OK, I got to go.’ And I don’t know, just kind of hit-and-see kind of thing,” he said. “It was a great birdie to steal there and just pretty happy with that.”

It marked his lowest score in 26 PGA Tour rounds as a professional. Bhatia shot a pair of 66s in September at the Safeway Open, where the teen sensation finished in a tie for ninth and cashed a check for $166,650.

“It’s indescribable, honestly,” he said of playing on the PGA Tour at such a young age. “I’ve just learned a lot how to get beaten up and when your highs are highs it’s really good out here and it’s good enough to compete out here, so take it day by day.”

Bhatia was a top-ranked junior and highly-touted amateur, who represented the U.S. in the 2019 Walker Cup. Bhatia still remembers the feeling when he won the Tarheel Junior Tour boys 11-and-under title at Hyland Golf Club to earn his first trophy. He’s won so many golf trophies that they are displayed in not one, but two rooms at his parent’s home in Wake Forest, North Carolina. In August, he hoisted his latest at a mini-tour event on the Swing Thought Tour. Just how many trophies has Bhatia collected?

“Honestly, I don’t even know,” Bhatia told Golfweek at his previous start at the American Express. “Probably close to 100.”

Bhatia took the road less taken among golf’s elite junior players and elected to skip college and turn pro as soon as he turned 18 in January. But Bhatia’s not just any young golfer.

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“I would’ve been more surprised if he had wanted to go to college rather than turn pro,” said one of Bhatia’s swing instructors, Chase Duncan.

Bhatia has experienced more valleys than peaks in his limited time as a professional, but he said the quarantine really proved to be a turning point for him.

“I was able to calm down and relax and get a good game plan and once we started back up just playing mini tour, playing Mondays, and just grinding it out,” he said. “I just gained a lot of confidence playing mini-tour events. I won my first one and that was a huge stepping stone for me. Then I made my first cut, finished top-10, which was great. Just doing that over the course of a year was really big for me and I just know that I’m progressing every single time I’m teeing it up.”

Count Phil Mickelson among those who have witnessed the strides Bhatia has made. He’s served as a mentor figure of sorts and taken Bhatia under his wing. Last month, they played a practice round together at the American Express and Bhatia dipped into Mickelson’s money clip, beating him soundly in their match. On the final hole, Mickelson told Bhatia that his game was “light year’s better” than the previous year.

Bhatia missed the cut at Pebble Beach two years ago but fell hard for the Monterey Peninsula and the famed links along the Pacific Ocean.

“I played here two years ago and loved it,” Bhatia said. “I can just look out at the ocean and my mind goes blank. It’s just beautiful.”

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Phil Mickelson’s budding relationship with teen sensation Akshay Bhatia is proving to be mutually beneficial

Mickelson is nearly three times the age of Akshay Bhatia and schooled him in the art of the pre-tournament practice round money game.

LA QUINTA, Calif. – Phil Mickelson began the head games with his 18-year-old practice-round opponent Akshay Bhatia early in their nine-hole match on Wednesday. Both players had just run downhill birdie putts at the 10th hole at PGA West’s Nicklaus Tournament Course less than 4 feet past the hole when Lefty, the 50-year-old crafty veteran, said, “I know we’re going to both make them, but let’s putt them anyway. You’re a little closer so, it’s in your favor.”

Bhatia, who turned pro without attending a day of college, received an education in gamesmanship that they don’t teach at any school of higher learning. Funny enough, Mickelson missed the putt and he’d have to lighten his bill fold for the second day in a row to the kid. Bhatia, who opened with an even-par 72 in the first round of the American Express, showed the promise that suggests he could be one of the bright young lights on the PGA Tour before too long. With his Gumby-esque physique, Bhatia drilled a 5-iron from 221 yards to inches from the hole at the par-5 11th hole that he said would’ve been his first albatross.

“Obviously it’s good,” Mickelson said. “I just wanted you to see how close it was.”

And when Bhatia continued to lay down the hammer, Mickelson said, “I take my beating and then I move on.”

Akshay Bhatia lines up a putt on the seventh hole during the first round of the 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship at The Country Club of Jackson. Photo: by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

This was a classic example of young vs. old, the protege vs. the aging superstar looking for one more score. It’s hard to say who is benefiting more from this burgeoning relationship. It has the feel of Mark O’Meara serving as a big brother of sorts to Tiger Woods at the start of Woods’ career. Woods lifted O’Meara to new heights, including two majors in 1998. Mickelson remembers receiving mentorship when he was around Bhatia’s age from former PGA Tour winner Howard Twitty, who played a pro-scratch with Mickelson when he was in college at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“That meant so much to me to have a chance to play with a player of his caliber that has won multiple times on Tour, and I don’t think he realizes how I looked up to him and how much I respected and appreciated that opportunity to play with him,” Mickelson said of Twitty. “And even to this day, 30 years later, I’m still remembering how that felt.”

For several years now, Mickelson has taken young up-and-comers, such as Keegan Bradley, Brendan Steele and most recently Jon Rahm under his wing and included them in his money games. It keeps Mickelson feeling young and relevant and has made him the unofficial captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Davis Love III, who is known as the godfather of the “Sea Island Mafia” of Tour pros who live in the coastal Georgia community of Saint Simons Island, has benefited from a similar elder-statesman role. In 2015, at age 51, Love won for the 21st time on Tour at the Wyndham Championship and became the last of seven players to win on Tour after turning 50.

“For me, to play with young kids like Akshay, who are so talented, it actually motivates me and it makes me feel and remember what it felt like to play golf as a kid, when I was a kid, and the love and passion that I have for it because as he starts out on his career, you can see and sense his excitement for the game, his drive, his motivation, his work ethic, and that is infectious,” Mickelson said. “I enjoy being around, and always have enjoyed being around good talented young players like this, and I’m happy to answer any questions that they may have, but I also feed off of their energy, work ethic, and drive.”

The American Express
Phil Mickelson plays his shot from the first tee during the first round of the 2021 American Express on the Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West on January 21, 2021 in La Quinta, California. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

It’s a mutually beneficial relationship that is reminiscent of another memorable tandem of the silver screen: Vincent Lauria and Eddie Felson from the 1980s movie “The Color of Money.” Lauria, played by Tom Cruise, is Felson’s hotshot pool protégé. Felson, an aging hustler, is inspired to make a comeback. Paul Newman won an Oscar for reprising his role as Fast Eddie from “The Hustler.” In one final lesson, Mickelson offered double or nothing on the 18th green, but Bhatia wouldn’t take the bait. He’d only play for half the amount, wanting to protect some of his winnings. But seeing Mickelson’s competitive fire alive and well called to mind the final scene of The Color of Money.

Lauria: “What are you going to do when I kick your ass?”

Felson: “Pick myself up and let you kick me again. Just don’t put the money in the bank, kid. Because if I don’t whip you now, I’m gonna whip you next month in Dallas. … And if not then, then the month after that, in New Orleans.”

Lauria: “Oh, yeah? What makes you so sure?”

Felson: “Hey, I’m back.”

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Is Akshay Bhatia ready to make his PGA Tour mark? He thinks so

Akshay Bhatia felt a breakthrough in winning on the SwingThought Tour at Hilton Head Island. Now he’s on to the Wyndham Championship.

Yes, Akshay Bhatia admits, he and buddy/caddie Jonas Hillyard do in fact chat about things like TikTok and Instagram on the golf course. Even when the stakes are high.

But Bhatia, who eschewed the college golf world for a chance to play PGA Tour events last fall, isn’t looking to be known as a rabble-rouser.

Bhatia is 18, and Hillyard — who played golf in high school and Bhatia “thought it was a great idea for him just to come travel with me and just have a friend to travel with” — is just 21, and the two are just living a life many of us can only dream of, carting their way from premier golf course to premier golf course.

They’re still, for a lack of a better term, just kids. And chit-chatting about things like social media might not make sense to others, but it certainly does to these two.

“We kind of keep it to ourselves because some of it might not be appropriate to some of these older guys or they won’t understand,” Bhatia said on Tuesday, in advance of the Wyndham Championship. “I try and heckle with some of the guys and I like talking trash to guys I know and I’m familiar with and I know that can understand my humor.”

Wyndham: Tee times/streaming | Field by the rankings | Fantasy

Bhatia had a dominant run through junior golf, defending his title at the Junior PGA Championship. He also won the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley and the AJGA’s Polo Golf Junior Classic.

He then decided to turn pro at the tender age of 17, meaning a mature lifestyle — grinding out a paycheck, leaving week-to-week, skipping the standard team-building of college golf for a more isolated existence.

And the results on the pro side have not yet been congruent with those from his stellar junior golf career. Bhatia has missed the cut in all five of the PGA Tour events in which he’s played, with just one sub-70 round in the bunch.

Last week, however, he feels there was a breakthrough of sorts as he captured the $15,000 winner’s check by capturing an event on the SwingThought Tour at Hilton Head Island. Bhatia fired rounds of 63 and 67 to take the title.

He’s now at the Wyndham, which is just over an hour from his home, thanks to tournament director Mark Brazil, who gave him a sponsor’s exemption last fall. And he feels prepared to make a splash.

“I’ve learned a lot since this quarantine kind of thing started. Like, honestly, when I got out first on Tour playing these tournaments, I definitely had self-belief when I was uncomfortable, that’s what’s going to happen at 17 years old playing against guys who have been out here for a while,” Bhatia said.  “But, you know, I’ve shot many lower scores in the last few months and that’s huge for me because knowing that I’m able to do it, knowing that I can play against guys who have played on the mini-tours or Korn Ferry or whatever just shows that I’m good enough to do it. I’m just going to go out there and just play golf, that’s all I have to do.

“That’s literally what it is, it’s just going out and playing a golf course. There’s nothing — there’s no secret to it.”

While others have blown up when attempting to live the Tour life at such a young age, or even regretted not spending time in college, Bhatia still thinks he made the right call. He was homeschooled and never enjoyed spending time in class, so college didn’t seem the right fit.

“Honestly, I’ve always had the mindset, I guess, of playing professional golf since I was a little kid, and kind of once we moved to Raleigh, I had more
opportunities to play against good players, older kids. I guess it just didn’t ever cross my mind that I wanted to do — you know, go to school,” he said. “All my mind was set on was just playing golf and playing on the PGA Tour and playing pro golf. I’ve met so many great people along the way, I’ve learned so much already. It’s crazy to think that like this month I would actually be going to college for my first year.

“Just thinking about that perspective and where my life would be if I was going to college, it’s just weird to think about. I don’t even know what would happen. I’ve just kind of always had that mentality of just learning the hard way and it’s definitely been some success and hopefully onward and upward, for sure.”

And as for hopping from event to event, just how has Bhatia been handling that?

In style. He recently leased a new car, one that he’d love to start making payments on with PGA Tour earnings.

“I spoiled myself, I got a Mercedes,” he said. “Probably not the smartest thing to do, but I enjoy it, so I’m not going to complain.”

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