{"id":436379,"date":"2025-08-16T22:11:01","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=436379"},"modified":"2025-08-16T22:11:01","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:11:01","slug":"akshay-bhatias-timely-hole-in-one-and-tour-championship-quest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/akshay-bhatias-timely-hole-in-one-and-tour-championship-quest\/","title":{"rendered":"Akshay Bhatia\u2019s Timely Hole-in-One and Tour Championship Quest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/rising-golf-star-akshay-bhatia\/\" target=\"_self\">Akshay Bhatia<\/a> delivered a timely hole-in-one in his Tour Championship quest, producing the biggest shot of his young career at the BMW Championship. The 23-year-old came into the week sitting on the FedExCup bubble but struck an ace on the 227-yard par-3 17th hole at Caves Valley Golf Club to ignite his playoff hopes.<\/p>\n<h2>Bhatia Shots First Ever Hole-In-One<\/h2>\n<p>The shot on the 227-yard hole was Bhatia&#8217;s first ever hole-in-one in PGA Tour competition, and it couldn&#8217;t have come at a better time as it pushed him into the top 30. Bhatia also won a new car in the process (a BMW iX), and BMW will provide a full four-year Evans Scholarship in his name to a deserving young caddie, presented by BMW of North America.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">First ace of his career as he battles on the bubble!<\/p>\n<p>Akshay Bhatia is now projected into the Top 30 in the FedExCup after a hole-in-one! <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YbvU9rERlF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/YbvU9rERlF<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PGATOUR\/status\/1956776883208462755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Bhatia shot a 5-over 75 in the first round on Thursday, which left him 13 strokes behind the leader. However, he shot a third-round 66 on Saturday to bounce back, holing out a sand wedge from 93 yards for an eagle on the par-4 seventh. He then moved to even par for the tournament after his 5-iron on No. 17 rolled into the hole. That performance lifted him back to even par for the tournament and, more importantly, gave him a much stronger chance of keeping his spot inside the top 30.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;I told myself just don&#8217;t be afraid to hit it, execute it, because it&#8217;s easy to bail out there. When that golf ball goes in, it was the craziest thing in the world,&#8221; Bhatia said. &#8220;My caddie was pointing at the car and I&#8217;m like, don&#8217;t even know what to do. I couldn&#8217;t even feel my body.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Bhatia Hoping To Make His Shot Count After a Difficult Season<\/h2>\n<p>Bhatia has struggled for much of the season and hasn&#8217;t recorded a top-10 since March, when he lost a chance to reach a playoff at the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/the-players-championship-playoff\/\" target=\"_self\">Players Championship<\/a> by a single shot. He showed signs of turning things around with a blistering opening 62 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, which led to a tie for sixth in the first playoff event. At the 3M Open, the two-time PGA Tour winner carded a third-round 63 to reach the final group, but a closing 75 on Sunday dropped him into a tie for 25th.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_436384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-436384\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-436384\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26855413_168416623_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-436384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aug 15, 2025; Owings Mills, Maryland, USA; Akshay Bhatia prepares to tee off on the 10th hole during the second round of the BMW Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Rafael Suanes-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;Every shot counts,&#8221; Bhatia said when asked about making most of his chances on Tour. &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to just shrug it in and not make it to the finish line. I want to try everything I can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bhatia ranked 29th in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/fedexcup-playoffs-on-the-line-see-what-players-need-at-wyndham-to-advance\/\" target=\"_self\">FedExCup standings<\/a> heading into the BMW Championship, right on the cut line for the season-ending Tour Championship. Only the top 30 advance to East Lake in Atlanta, where the FedExCup title and a record $18 million prize will be decided.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Rafael Suanes-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Akshay Bhatia delivered a timely hole-in-one in his Tour Championship quest, producing the biggest shot of his young career at the BMW Championship. The 23-year-old came into the week sitting on the FedExCup bubble but struck an ace on the 227-yard par-3 17th hole at Caves Valley Golf Club to ignite his playoff hopes. Bhatia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5425,"featured_media":435456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19],"tags":[297,8160,90,278],"class_list":["post-436379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-pga","tag-akshay-bhatia","tag-bmw-championship","tag-fedex-st-jude-classic","tag-tour-championship"],"modified_by":"Ajayi Segun","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436379"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436381,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436379\/revisions\/436381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}