AUGUSTA -- As career arcs go, Akshay Bhatia’s post-pubescent foray into professional golf took off like an anvil in the deep end of the talent pool.
A highly respected junior player -- he was the first high school student to ever make a Walker Cup team -- Bhatia determined 17 was plenty old enough so he skipped the college route, turned pro in 2019 and found himself in a cart with only one gear: R.
He missed the cut in all six of his first PGA Tour events on sponsors’ exemptions that first year. It took him three years just to make the Korn Ferry Tour full-time, where he lost his card after only one season. Ranked as low as 432nd last year in the World Golf Rankings, he was an attention-grabber at 6-feet-1 and a preposterous 130 pounds with the oversized black glasses. Plus he was left-handed. But his portfolio was pretty empty.
The richness of such a dubious back story was certainly not lost on Bhatia on Monday, as he attempted to explain how that same player was here to play in the Masters this week. And that’s not even taking into account that he reinjured a troublesome left shoulder the day before while celebrating the biggest putt of his life.
How to explain all this?
“I really can’t,” he replied.
Short recap. He led the Valero Texas Open wire-to-wire last week, watching a 6-shot lead vanish on the back nine on Sunday when Dennis McCarthy shot a 28 to catch him on the 72nd hole. Bhatia needed to sink a 12-foot birdie putt to force a playoff, subluxating his shoulder with a hearty fist-pump, and then took the title when McCarthy bogeyed the first extra hole out of a creek, making him the last player to qualify for the Masters.
But first things first: Is the shoulder ready for Augusta National?
“I had a full dislocation playing pickleball a couple years ago and it kind of subluxed in Bermuda a couple (times) in 2021,” he said. “I played through that week. ...
“So it’s nothing new to me. It’s a weird, weird experience because I had so much adrenalin, so I had no pain in the playoff. But it’s something we’re going to have to work toward and I have a lot of faith in my team that we can tee it up on Thursday.”
California-born but raised in North Carolina by his India-immigrant parents, Sonny and Renu, Bhatia was drawn to golf after watching his sister Rhea excel at the game. (She played collegiately at Queen’s University.) He was a finalist in the Masters’ Drive, Chip and Putt competition 10 years ago. (He’s the first alum from that event to subsequently qualify for the Masters). He won the Junior PGA at 15, was named the Rolex junior player of the year at 16 and despite being widely recruited, he determined to bypass the hothouse that is college golf.
“Growing up, I had some mentors out here pretty early on. Phil Mickelson was one of them,” he said. “... I’m still trying to find my footing with some friendships out here. It’s definitely a little different because it’s a lot more business-oriented, especially when you tee it up. But I have a couple good friends out here and I’m looking to kind of build my team and kind of stick to who I have and who I trust.”
Two factors have fed his turnaround, the first one an equipment change. Targeting some lagging putting stats, he switched last September from a standard putter to a boomstick model (the Versa Jailbird 380) and the results were immediate, particularly in short range. He currently ranks 10th on the PGA Tour on putts from 10 feet. Last season, he finished No. 103.
The second was not as simple: addressing the stress and anxiety he began experiencing. Working with sports psychologist Julie Elion and her assistant Ryan Davis in the last two months, Bhatia has reworked his internal wiring. Davis is expected to fly in Tuesday to help in preparations for Bhatia’s second major. He tied for 57th in the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
“There was so much that I had going on in my life, not just in golf, but more so in my life, and we tackled a lot of things, a lot of long conversations these last couple weeks,” he said. “And I’ve really tried to work on myself off the golf course, dealing with a lot of different things.”
His play at the Valero might have gone a different way. He did not feel he was hitting the ball well but reviewing his performance at the Houston Open the week before, he rationalized there were six shots that he should have reconsidered, shots that would have greatly improved his 11th-place finish.
“We tackled that. Yeah, everything kind of came to fruition,” he said, “And it wasn’t easy, for sure. I felt like I couldn’t breathe the whole day, the last couple days. But it was also a weird sense of calmness. I don’t really know how to describe that.”
The next 24 hours were a whirlwind. A sponsor-arranged private plane delivered him here from San Antonio at 1:30 Monday morning and he didn’t get to the course until 2 p.m. for a series of media sessions. He played Augusta National a couple years ago, rekindling his giddy first visit for the DC&P competition as a 12-year-old. Big thrill: riding in the same elevator as John Daly. He was drinking a Diet Coke.
But that was then.
“So it’s another golf tournament,” Bhatia said. “It’s a very special tournament. But at the end of the day, one of us is going to win. So that’s kind of my goal. And, yeah, I’m excited to tee it up.”
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