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“Did you chunk it?”
All Akshay Bhatia could do was shake his head at the ridiculous question from his friend after the round. Sixteen-year-old Bhatia had just sunk a near-impossible 40-foot chip for an eagle. And this was not your average hole out. Bhatia did it on the 72nd hole of the 2018 Junior PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club. A downhill slider from just long of the par 5, which he reached in two.
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It is not an exaggeration to say that Bhatia left himself with one of the most precarious chips possible around the horseshoe-shaped green complex. And with the clubhouse leader one shot ahead, Bhatia needed an up-and-down birdie to tie and move into a sudden-death playoff.
He did one better instead.
“It was one of the clutchest moments of my career,” Bhatia said three weeks before the PGA Championship’s return to Valhalla for the fourth time.
Earlier today, Akshay Bhatia won the #JuniorPGA at @ValhallaGolf … by doing this! pic.twitter.com/MeITpo4ufH
— PGA of America (@PGA) August 4, 2018
The chip was airborne for less than a yard — hence the inquiry about it being an accidental mish*t — before it softly landed on the putting surface and picked up speed. The lefty retracted his wedge into his right hand like a knight returning his sword to his sheath as he watched his ball head directly toward the cup. It was all part of Bhatia’s plan.
“I hit it exactly how I wanted to,” Bhatia said. “It was one of those chips where you just have to tap the golf ball and it’s going to feed down to the hole.”
The teenage golf sensation triumphantly pumped his clenched fists as the ball fell over the hole’s edge, family and friends joining him in celebration around the green. With the improbable chip-in, Bhatia defended his 2017 Junior PGA title, becoming the first back-to-back champion in the event’s 48-year history. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas have all played in the prestigious junior tournament. Sam Burns and Trevor Immelman have won it. Bhatia is the only player who has come out on top twice.
He might not have known it then, but the confidence Bhatia mustered to visualize and execute that shot epitomizes exactly why he came out on top on that sticky afternoon in Louisville. It also explains how he made it back to Valhalla six years later, this time as a PGA Tour player making his first PGA Championship start.
He stands a couple of inches taller, and a few additional pounds support his recognizable lanky physique. His signature eyeglasses have shape-shifted from nerdy rectangles to sleek, rounded frames. A few more trophies stand on his shelf at home in Wake Forest, N.C. Bhatia is ready as ever to compete in his third major, at the same venue that started it all: The Kentucky course awaits another flash of brilliance from the former golf prodigy.
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Full-circle moments are starting to feel like regularly scheduled programming for Bhatia.
Last month, the 22-year-old clinched his second PGA Tour victory at the Valero Texas Open in a one-hole playoff against Denny McCarthy to earn the final Masters invitation up for grabs. He was the last player to be added to the field at Augusta National, but his entry had another significance.
That week Bhatia became the first Drive, Chip & Putt Finals alum to tee it up in the Masters, 10 years after participating in the competition for 7-to-15-year-olds hosted annually at Augusta National.
Friday morning, he found himself next to Tiger Woods on the practice green.
“Tiger came up to me and said congrats,” Bhatia said. “He joked around with me and gave me a nickname. The first time I met him, it was just a handshake in line with a bunch of other junior golfers. For Tiger Woods to recognize me as a player and a person is something I’ll cherish as a memory from my first Masters.”
He made the cut in his Masters debut and finished tied for 35th.
Threads continue to string themselves together throughout Bhatia’s career, with Valhalla being the latest example. The trend won’t stop here. Why? Bhatia has been winning and succeeding at the game’s highest levels for a long time.
Bhatia’s journey to his current position as the No. 33-ranked player in the world, per DataGolf.com, was unconventional. But Bhatia wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Already gaining significant traction on the amateur golf scene as a middle schooler, Bhatia’s parents, Sonny and Renu, knew they had a special talent on their hands. Renu took on additional work outside of her 9-to-5 corporate planning job to continue supporting her son’s dream of becoming a professional golfer. Sonny traveled with Bhatia to tournaments across the country. Bhatia took advantage, honing his craft nonstop.
A win last month at the Texas Open was Akshay Bhatia’s second on the PGA Tour. (Raj Mehta / Getty Images)
The accolades kept coming. When Bhatia won tournaments, he’d ask his coach at the time, George Gankas, what he could have done to win by more. He would speak about getting bored when playing so well, always searching for a new skill to perfect on the course. Bhatia’s relentless, never-satisfied attitude was innate. His parents decided to transition Bhatia to online home school starting in sixth grade.
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Most elite junior golfers in the U.S. have sights set on verbal commitment offers from Stanford, Texas or another top-tier Division I golf program. Bhatia had a different vision, and his parents were on board, despite his older sister Rhea enjoying college golf at Queens University of Charlotte. Bhatia wanted to skip college and turn professional as soon as he completed online high school, and that’s exactly what he did. A path that American juniors rarely dare to take was the only option Bhatia ever truly considered.
A 17-year-old Bhatia turned pro at the 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship. Already growing a social media following for his junior dominance and powerful swing, Bhatia received seven sponsor exemptions to PGA Tour events. He missed all seven cuts. Bhatia wasn’t sitting in a classroom, but he was learning.
He didn’t earn a fast track to the PGA Tour by succeeding in those coveted sponsor exemptions, like college stars Viktor Hovland, Matthew Wolff and Collin Morikawa had done that summer. Instead, Bhatia had to grind it out on the mini-tours. He encountered all sorts of unforeseen hurdles: His mental game was in disarray and the onset of the pandemic limited his competitive schedule. Many questioned his decision to forgo an NCAA career.
Traveling the country as a sub-21-year-old presented its challenges. While competing on the Korn Ferry Tour, Bhatia was forced to drive a U-Haul to the Wichita Open because he was too young to rent an SUV.
Finally, Bhatia made his first PGA Tour cut and found a groove. He won a Korn Ferry Tour event in 2022. He secured special temporary member status on the PGA Tour by early 2023. Bhatia parlayed the opportunity into his maiden PGA Tour victory at the opposite-field Barracuda Championship that July, where he sunk a 15-foot putt to force a playoff.
He captured his second victory on tour at the Valero in a similar fashion. After Bhatia made the turn with a comfortable six-shot lead, Denny McCarthy charged, making eight birdies on the back nine to shoot a back-nine 28. Bhatia again faced a putt that would determine his fate: He drained an 11-footer for birdie to enter a playoff, and the ensuing fist pump was so forceful it nearly threw out his bad shoulder. He won in sudden-death play.
Bhatia’s winning instinct took over. He executed the task at hand when it mattered the most. Sound familiar?
“I always go back to those three moments I’ve had,” Bhatia said, “Barracuda, Valero and Valhalla. Those are all shots I needed to make and I was able to do it three times. It shows me that I can dig deep and truly embrace the moment when a lot of people can’t.”
Near ACE for Akshay Bhatia on 17. 😨
📺: Golf Channel & @peaco*ck | @WellsFargoGolf pic.twitter.com/yxJGidZqeC
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) May 11, 2024
That summer at Valhalla, Bhatia was in the middle of his most successful junior golf season. The No. 1 junior in the world at the time, Bhatia was busy claiming victory after victory. He began winning the prestigious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley, just 20 miles from Augusta National. A few weeks later, he claimed the AJGA Polo Golf Junior Classic title by 10 shots, his sixth victory on the elite junior tour.
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Then it came time to chase junior golf’s pinnacle achievement: the U.S. Junior Amateur, a match-play format tournament with a 36-hole championship match, hosted at Baltusrol Golf Club in 2018. It was no surprise when Bhatia made it to the finals. But that Sunday Bhatia was outplayed. Fellow 16-year-old Michael Thorbjornsen defeated Bhatia in a thrilling back-and-forth battle, winning 1 up on the final hole.
The loss stung, but Bhatia pressed on. The Junior PGA — where he had won the year prior by shooting a record-breaking 61 — was the next major junior event on his schedule.
Bhatia remembers bits and pieces of his historic week in Kentucky in 2018. He recalls studying the hole locations from the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla, when Rory McIlroy won his last major championship. When the tournament began, Bhatia recognized the pin positions from his pre-tournament research. He felt like he suddenly had a leg up on the rest of the field.
Bhatia can grudgingly recount shooting a 4-over 76 in the second round. He needed a pep talk from his coach, Chase Duncan, in the car. The next day he fired a 7-under 65 to take a share of the lead heading into Sunday.
Then came the eagle hole-out that cemented his status as a junior golf legend.
“We were expecting him to get it up and down, no question,” said Canon Claycomb, a current member of the University of Alabama men’s golf team who finished top five at the Junior PGA. “The chip was so hard. We were all kind of joking, ‘He’s gonna make this’ because he had just killed everyone all year.”
Returning to Louisville six years later, Bhatia is a different person. He’ll still be one of the youngest competitors in the PGA Championship field, but he’s engaged to his long-time girlfriend Presleigh Schultz. He’s hired a full team around him, including mental coach Ryan Davis, putting coach Stephen Sweeney and short-game expert Gabe Hjerstedt. Still at an age when his peers are just entering professional golf, Bhatia has built a brand and has proved he belongs among the world’s best.
But Bhatia knows he is the same in many ways. He’ll always be the fearless competitor who got up and down from jail on the 18th green at Valhalla for the win.
The shot was far from a “chunk” that got lucky. It was the chip that started it all.
(Top photo: Logan Riely / Getty Images)
Gabby Herzig is a Staff Writer for The Athletic covering golf. Before joining The Athletic, she worked as a breaking news writer for Sports Illustrated’s golf vertical and a contributing editor at Golf Digest. She is a graduate of Pomona College, where she captained the varsity women’s golf team.
