Akshay Bhatia played alongside Rory McIlroy during the first round of The Masters at Augusta national on Thursday.
The storyline wrote itself, with one of golf’s most exciting upstarts showcasing his skills against one of the greatest to ever play the game.
Rory McIlroy was actually well ahead of Akshay Bhatia throughout most of the day at The Masters.
However, the 35-year-old finished up two shots behind his younger rival, after his disastrous final four-hole stretch where he dropped four shots to fall back to level par.
Rich Beem has insisted that Rory McIlroy can still win The Masters this year, but that really is positive thinking.
He’s certainly capable of producing fireworks around Augusta National though.
The problem is that McIlroy has given himself a huge mountain to climb now.
Akshay Bhatia says what it was like playing with Rory McIlroy at The Masters
Bhatia was asked how he went about trying to block out the noise caused by playing alongside Rory:
“Stay pretty focused. It’s really cool. As a kid, I’ve grown up watching him. To kind of be in that group, I was a little surprised. But it was awesome.
“I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I just kind of stay in my own lane, and I know — it makes it feel a little bit more important, which is kind of nice, if you focus a little more.
“A lot of Rory chants out there, so I wasn’t too worried about just playing with him. But there was definitely a lot of people rooting him on, which they should.“
Akshay was then asked whether he spoke to the four-time major champion much out on the course:
“A little bit. I just kind of let him do his own thing. I didn’t want to — as the young kid, I didn’t want to bug him too much.“
The exciting 23-year-old then explained just how difficult the treacherous 15th hole at Augusta National was playing, after McIlroy made an inexplicable double bogey that dented his Masters hopes.
“Yeah, it’s a new green, so it’s really firm already. It’s a very good risk-reward hole. If you lay up you’re almost trying to make 5 for that flag. If you go for it and you have a decent chip like Ludvig, you still have to execute the chip. It’s a really good hole. It’s an interesting kind of decision you have to make, because if you lay up you’re off a downslope to a pretty shallow green.“
Those last comments from Bhatia are very interesting indeed, considering the theory shared by Paul McGinley when McIlroy’s round unravelled on the 15th.
Paul McGinley’s bizarre take on Akshay Bhatia and Rory McIlroy
After McIlroy double bogied the 15th hole to drop back to two-under par at the time, McGinley stepped in to offer an explanation as to why the Northern Irishman may have lost concentration:
“I want to take you back to the 15th hole. Rory was imperious up until then. Playing beautifully. Very focused, very concentrated and then a couple of things happened there as was getting ready to play what was a difficult chip but not impossible on 15,” he said.
“The first was his playing partner, Bhatia, hit his second shot in the water. He took forever to take the drop and after almost 10 practice swings he then went and played his pitch shot. It wasn’t a bad shot from where it was but it went back on to Rory’s line.
“Now from there Rory has to wait for him even though he is ready to go and he is a quick player, one of the quickest players on the tour. Bhatia has to walk all the way around the water and all the way up on to the green to mark his ball.
“Then as Rory is getting ready to play again he has to wait for the 16th tee box which is right behind and the playing people having to hit there too. So again, a bit of a drop in concentration, he hasn’t got into his routine as he has before and I think he got distracted there. That is why the execution wasn’t quite what we have seen up until there. That was a difficult shot, it wasn’t impossible, it was a miss hit and I think it was down to concentration more than anything else. It could well have been a factor that those two incidents happened and slowed him down to almost three minutes from when it was his shot to play before he actually played it. That is a long time for Rory McIlroy, one of the quickest players in the game.”
That is the very definition of clutching at straws.
Even if Rory McIlroy did have to wait a long time to play his shot because of the trials and tribulations of Akshay Bhatia, he should have just dealt with it.
If the 35-year-old is to ever win The Masters, he will have to overcome a lot tougher challenges than the one he faced on the 15th on Thursday, that’s for sure.
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