Akshay Bhatia admits feeling one part of his game isn’t as good after he made big change

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Akshay Bhatia will certainly reflect on 2024 being a real breakout year on the PGA Tour, with the 22-year-old on course to feature at the Tour Championship in the FedEx Cup play-offs.

Consistency has been an issue for Akshay Bhatia, with the youngster missing seven cuts and finishing in the top 10 on three occasions. The highlight of his year, so far, came as he won the Valero Texas Open.

Bhatia is 15th in the FedEx Cup standings heading into the Wyndham Championship, and he also finds himself 11th in the standings for the Presidents Cup – so there is a decent chance that he will be involved in Montreal.

Of course, the most agonising moment for Bhatia probably came on the final green at the Rocket Mortgage Classic when he three-putted to lose to Cam Davis. A par would have set up a play-off with the Australian, but Bhatia missed from a fairly short distance in Detroit to miss out.

Akshay Bhatia suggests one part of his technique is not as good

Perhaps that helps explain why Bhatia does not feel that his technique is not quite where it needs to be with the flat stick since switching to the longer putter.

“I made a pretty big putter change this year, obviously going to the broomstick, I’ve just really embraced that aspect of putting,” he said.

“I feel like, honestly, my technique probably isn’t as good as it used to be, but I seem to make more putts, and I was telling my coach that today, that my stroke’s nearly not as good, but for some reason, they go in more and more often.”

An unbelievable jump this season

Bhatia is actually 36th on tour for strokes gained with the putter this season. Remarkably, he was down in 183rd in the same category last year. To put that improvement in context, Scottie Scheffler has jumped 72 places to 90th from last season, while Bhatia has risen 147 places.

It is fascinating that he does not feel that his technique is as good as it used to be, because clearly his putting is so much stronger than it had been. That perhaps helps explain what happened at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, as his putting had barely caused him an issue all week, and helped put him in the position where a birdie on the 72nd hole would have given him a second victory of the year.

However, when he was left with a tester to force a play-off, he was unable to find the bottom of the cup – perhaps highlighting that he does quite have the level of confidence that he would like in those defining moments.