Every Sunday brings something different. One week there’s tears in the eyes of the champion. The next there’s flushed cheeks and sorrow words from the runner-up. This week brought the first playoff at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in nearly 30 years. And with it, a reminder:
This whole season has been telling us something. And Akshay Bhatia was watching closely enough to remind us once he made the winning putt.
“This game is so crazy,” he told Cara Banks just minutes after his win. “It’s been crazy for these last couple weeks, watching [Jacob] Bridgeman win and then watching Nico [Echavarria] win, and so you just never know what can happen in this game.”
If you only tune in on Sundays, that’s been the story of the year, no? You just never know. That’s all we’ve seen recently! The Bridgeman character he’s referring to nearly bungled a lead on the back nine at the Genesis Invitational two weeks ago, having started the day six shots ahead. (He somewhat calmly parred the last to win by one.) The Nico character he’s referring to was last week’s winner by way of a Shane Lowry collapse. Lowry held a three-shot lead with three to play before rinsed multiple shots in the water. You just never know.
Bhatia was never leading this week’s tournament alone until that final putt dropped. Daniel Berger, the runner-up, was trying to lead wire-to-wire, which had never been done at the legendary tournament. The 32-year-old Floridian had a five-shot lead through 36 holes. Then a one-shot lead through 54. And then suddenly, a three-shot lead with just six to play. He was on cruise control, but you just never know.
Chris Gotterup had one-half of a hole to play at the WM Phoenix Open last month, sitting two shots back with an expected win probability of 0.7%. (That is, win once or twice in 200 tries.) It was Super Bowl Sunday so maybe you weren’t watching, or maybe you were focused on making an appetizer, or commuting to the football watch party … as Gotterup stunted on those odds, made birdie from the rough, squeezed into a playoff and poured in a 40-footer to win. You just never know.
Maybe that’s what Bhatia was thinking while playing the par-5 16th hole, on which he hit perhaps the best 6-iron of his life to a tap-in eagle, moving to one back. It’s likely the shot he’ll remember most from this tournament, given how it took three steely pars after to raise the trophy.
He did, at the very least, admit to thinking about that mentality when he turned to the back nine. Bhatia had played the front in two over, bogeying the 9th. He was five back of Berger at that point and pissed off.
“So I went to 10 tee very angry,” he said after, while wearing the red cardigan that API winner’s receive. “That was the first time I really showed some frustration. But I told [my caddie, Joe Greiner] you know, we shot 4-under yesterday on this side, let’s just try and do that again. And you just never know in this game.”
