Goal-driven Akshay Bhatia aims high with Presidents Cup next in his sights

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Long before he was proven at golf’s highest level, Akshay Bhatia declared as a young teenager that he wanted to become the first player to break 60 at Augusta National. It was a creative manifestation of his confidence in his abilities.

Some professional golfers refuse to share their goals, whether for superstition or privacy reasons. Bhatia isn’t one of them.

The North Carolina native is home this week for his fourth Wyndham Championship, in his first full season as a PGA TOUR member, firmly entrenched as one of golf’s rising stars. Bhatia, 22, ranks No. 15 on the FedExCup on the strength of a win at the Valero Texas Open and 10 other top-25 finishes. He’ll play in each of the first two FedExCup Playoffs events and is in good shape to reach the TOUR Championship at East Lake, which he attended as a preteen and remembers fondly. He’s steadily compiling the results to validate his long-term self-belief.

Bhatia has competed in all four major championships this year, achieving a goal he had written down (in his phone notes) at the start of the year. Another goal, competing in the TOUR Championship, is well within his reach. He also added a goal midway through the season: representing the United States at next month’s Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal.

The goal is well within the realm. Bhatia stands No. 11 on the U.S. Team Presidents Cup standings with three weeks remaining before the top six for automatic qualification are finalized; captain Jim Furyk will make six captain’s selections shortly thereafter.

The next month offers several opportunities for Bhatia to present a compelling case for inclusion on the U.S. Team, beginning this week at the Wyndham.

“Presidents Cup's definitely a goal,” Bhatia said Wednesday. “That was added later in the year … when I kind of started to know I had a little bit of a chance, especially after I won.

“Obviously playing for your country is really special. Watching the Olympics is very, very inspiring and I hope to try and make my way towards that team. I've just heard a lot of great stories when it comes out of those team rooms.”

At the Wyndham, Bhatia looks to flip a track record that has included missed cuts in each of his first three starts at Sedgefield. He’s hungry to change that, both for what it could mean toward his goals and for giving the home crowd something to cheer about. He still lives in the Raleigh area, roughly an hour from Greensboro, and works with Raleigh-based swing instructor Chase Duncan.

Four years ago, Bhatia opened the Wyndham in 3-under 67 but made four bogeys and a double bogey on the back nine Friday to miss the cut by four. It marked his sixth missed cut in six TOUR starts that season, as the questions grew regarding his decision to bypass college and turn professional immediately – the region thought to native son Ty Tryon, who forged a similar path and earned his TOUR card at 17 but quickly lost it.

Bhatia met the media after that gutting missed cut at the 2020 Wyndham and vowed to learn from it. “It’s a long journey ahead of me,” he told the Raleigh News & Observer at the time. “It’s not going to come right away … Eventually, something good’s going to happen.”

He has validated those words, winning on the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour and earning PGA TOUR Special Temporary Membership with a runner-up at the 2023 Puerto Rico Open, which led to his first TOUR title at the Barracuda Championship later that summer. The bespectacled Carolinian relishes the word “adversity” and draws energy from overcoming a challenge. At the Barracuda, that meant overcoming the altitude that would seemingly be unfit for his low, curvy ball flight. He found the winner’s circle anyways. (Among other examples: his Korn Ferry Tour win came three weeks after dislocating his shoulder while playing pickleball, and he outlasted Denny McCarthy in a Valero Texas Open playoff after again throwing out his shoulder while fist-pumping a birdie on the 72nd hole to force overtime.)

This time, it might mean rebounding from a narrow loss at last month’s Rocket Mortgage Classic – where he three-putted the 72nd hole to miss a playoff by one shot – to add a couple more green checkmarks to that goal list.

For Bhatia, who first competed in a U.S. Open local qualifier at age 10, there’s no use limiting ambition. He hasn’t shied away from a long-term goal of reaching world No. 1, and although that’s a lofty task (particularly in the era of Scottie Scheffler), he is only 22 years old. His trajectory suggests it’s possible – and where better than his home event to keep climbing?