Akshay Bhatia sinks clutch putt to make cut at US Open, but wishes it were for more
In the moment, Akshay Bhatia had chills. As darkness fell on Torrey Pines on Friday, playing in the day’s final group, he knew his 4-foot putt on the 18th green would drop him to 4-over-par, good enough to make the cut in his first major.
He had checked the scoreboard a few holes earlier and done the math in his head; he was going to need to birdie the last, which meant challenging the water short left of the green. Bhatia crushed his second over the green on the par-5, pitched to a few feet and sunk the putt to the cheers of what was left of the gallery at the U.S. Open’s final hole — and immediately wished it were for more than the right to stick around for the weekend.
“It was definitely a cool moment with all my family here, everyone else supporting me locally,” the 19-year-old pro from Wake Forest said. “It was a cool feeling. I wish it wasn’t to make the cut. But it is what it is.”
As it turned out, Bhatia didn’t have much time to consider the what-ifs. He went from last to finish to first to start, teeing off less than 12 hours later in Saturday’s first group. With the leaders still in the clubhouse (or in their hotel rooms), Bhatia got some television time, including a birdie on 16 and a nice up-and-down to save par on 18 for a 73. But he still ended up 2-over for the day and 6-over for the tournament, which left him lamenting the missed opportunity to move up the leaderboard.
“It was pretty disappointing,” Bhatia said. “I thought I had a pretty good chance of moving up the leaderboard and playing really well, and today I didn’t really do anything. I had some poor iron shots. And I actually drove it well, which was satisfying, because I’ve been struggling with that a little bit the last few months. Overall, it was a pretty boring round of golf and nothing too special.”
As frustrated as Bhatia may have been with his play, there’s still something to be said for not only making it through qualifying — he beat out several tour pros for a spot at the final qualifier in Hilton Head, S.C. — but making the cut when local pros like Webb Simpson and Brendon Todd did not.
There have been lessons learned, like how heavily mistakes are punished on a U.S. Open course, and views to savor, like the people lining the fairways and filling the merchandise tent. Those have been missing for most of his pro career, and there’s no energy like the crowd at a major.
“I’m just trying to enjoy it a little more than I am,” Bhatia said. “It’s a pretty cool experience and not everyone gets to experience it, at my age especially. But I’m finding it hard to enjoy my experience here, something I’ve never going to forget, but I’ve had a rough time trying to enjoy it. Just not playing well, making dumb mistakes. Can’t really do anything about it. Hopefully, I’ve got 18 holes left to do something.”
With an odd number of players making the cut, Bhatia went out as a solo Saturday morning, playing with a “marker,” a civilian for company: Pinehurst U.S. Open favorite Jason Gore, who came out of nowhere to join Retief Goosen in the final pairing in 2005 and is now a USGA executive.
Bhatia was too young to remember that, but he knew Gore: As a kid growing up in Valencia, Calif., before his family moved to the Triangle, Bhatia would see Gore hanging around Vista Valencia, the par-61 public course where Bhatia learned to play.
North Carolinians know them as two of the more curious stories in golf, the surprise U.S. Open contender who became an instant fan favorite and the teen who skipped college to turn pro at 17. One of those tales reached a quiet close, with Gore winning one tournament on the PGA Tour later that summer before his career tailed off. There’s a lot left to be written about Bhatia.
“He hit some chip shots around there that were just like, ‘Wow, that was really good,’ ” Gore said. “You can’t practice those. That’s just God-given talent of just you’re sprinkled with those. It’s something special to have those hands, but he’s really good. He’s really smart. He played smart, like he hit a lot of good shots.
“He didn’t have his A game, but it’s the U.S. Open. You can have an A-minus game, and it will look like a D game out here. He’s going to have a heck of a career. He’s just got to continue to love it and just keep working hard. He’s 19. It’s pretty incredible.”
At the moment, he remains an outsider looking in at the PGA Tour, after COVID disrupted the usual pathways to tour membership he would have pursued last fall. At this point, the only player on tour he knows well is fellow Callaway endorsee Phil Mickelson, who has flown Bhatia around on his jet and played another practice round with him this week.
That has left Bhatia trying to scrape by on sponsor exemptions and Monday qualifying. With a top 10 at the Safeway Open last fall and a tie for 30th at Pebble Beach in February, Bhatia’s season was off to a good start, with a decent shot at the partial status known as “special temporary membership” with a few more good results. But he missed the cut in the next three events he played, has only one sponsor exemption left and faces a long summer of Monday qualifying to get into more tournaments
That starts next week, when he’ll fly to Europe to try to qualify for the British Open, where as a member of the 2019 Walker Cup team he gets a pass to final qualifying.
First, he’ll try to either play well Sunday or try to find a way to enjoy the experience. Or, preferably, both.
