– Akshay Bhatia (-15) has won the Arnold Palmer Invitational after defeating Daniel Berger (-15) at the first playoff hole and has truly come of age at the forefront of world golf. He is not a conventional player, he doesn’t quite fit this era of consistent, machine-like, repetitive and efficient swings, but he is as brave as they come and, surely for that reason, a great creator of formidable waves of inspiration, or ‘moments’, as they are often called.
– The Californian of Indian descent had almost waved goodbye to any chance of victory at the turn of the final round, with a +2 over that stretch. However, later, when no one expected it, very frustrated with the driver in his hands, he pushed Daniel Berger (-15) off his flawless roadmap. He did it with flashes of talent, pulling one rabbit out of his hat after another, in an extraordinary final nine holes of the tournament. It was the only way to storm the Floridian’s stronghold, who will go to bed tonight devastated, but who tomorrow should properly appreciate his excellent week of golf.
– Bhatia’s long late surge was as unexpected as it was relentless, full of determination, never looking back, not thinking about what he could lose but about what he could still gain. At one moment he played an outstanding hole from start to finish (birdie at 10), then holed a mile-long putt (birdie at 11), then risked everything going for the flag at 13 (birdie), then struck the shot of the tournament at the par-5 16th from 175 metres, where he came close to an albatross and left the eagle almost certain… A hurricane. Berger, who had opened the tournament at the 13th with one of his few gross errors all week (with a wedge in his hands he went too long, to the back bunker, and the ball even got stuck in the sand), then held on with gallantry, composure and good decisions, but his great rival’s unstoppable push ended up unravelling his game, until he fell with a bogey on the first hole of a playoff that he himself had forced on the 72nd hole of the tournament, holing a four-metre putt to save par.
– The left-handed and brilliant Bhatia does not have the profile of a two- or three-time Major winner, let’s not kid ourselves. But the effervescence of his golf deserves this kind of prize and, on the other hand, he keeps evolving and reaching more interesting levels of consistency. So it is also possible that he will never stop surprising us. It is absurd that he could win at Bay Hill with such poor tee numbers (45th in SG:Off the tee), but his stats on and around the greens have been outrageous. The sum of his figures for SG:Putting and SG: Around the Green has gone above 16 strokes gained over the tournament field average, the best figure on record since these statistics have existed. All of it together, as if it were perfectly normal…
– Bhatia will move into the world top 20 for the first time in his career and, with his first win in a Signature Event he has also earned a place in The Open. Berger, for his part, seems back for the big events. Today at Bay Hill, only a reckless kamikaze could have denied him glory. Anyone else, perhaps, given what was seen in the first nine holes, would have seriously considered the possibility of finishing at least inside the top ten… Bhatia is not that profile. And it should be celebrated.
– The attempts of other contenders, by the way, had fallen by the wayside, although Ludvig Aberg (-12), who did not even start with that label of serious alternative, carded an excellent final 67 that puts the Swede on the launchpad for THE PLAYERS next week.
