He trains on the Grand Strand as the world’s top junior golfer. Next up: A PGA Tour start
On Feb. 4, the day after Akshay Bhatia won the Jones Cup, the preeminent amateur golf tournament of the winter and one of the top amateur events in the U.S., Allen Terrell received a video.
It was from Bhatia, and it wasn’t of him celebrating his momentous win or his 17th birthday three days prior.
“He sends me swing video the next day and he’s out in like driving rain hitting balls wanting me to tell him what I think of his golf swing,” said Terrell, the director of instruction at the Dustin Johnson Golf School at TPC Myrtle Beach and one of Bhatia’s swing coaches.
“That’s who he is and that’s why he’s good. No matter what tournament he wins he’s going to try to get better the next day. He’s never satisfied. That’s a rare thing. You don’t see that much. People think the end of the road is the trophy. He doesn’t look at it that way.
“. . . That’s obviously why he’s playing at a higher and higher level.”
He’ll be playing at the highest level this week.
Bhatia, of Wake Forest, N.C., is the No. 1 junior in the world and is ranked ninth in the World Amateur Golf Ranking – he dropped two spots this week – and is playing on a sponsor exemption in the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course outside Tampa, Fla., beginning Thursday.
The PGA Tour is where Bhatia sees himself playing regularly in the near future, possibly as soon as next year since he will forego college golf and turn pro as early as September.
He announced last year he would turn pro after turning 18 next Jan. 31, but he’s considering making the leap after the Walker Cup in early September in England, especially if he plays in it.
He was the only junior golfer selected to the U.S. team’s 16-man practice squad in December, and is vying to become the first high-schooler to make the 10-man team in amateur golf’s version of the Ryder Cup.
“I think the schedule and plan I have will be a little more beneficial in the long run, but there’s so much more golf to be played in the next five or six months,” Bhatia said.
That includes this week at Innisbrook. He’s looking forward to being inside the ropes with PGA Tour players he has looked up to for several years, but said his focus will be on his game.
“I’m really excited to get the experience out there, but at the same time it’s another event for me,” Bhatia said. “I’m ready to get going. I’m playing really, really good so I’m just ready to play another tournament and try to go win it. . . . My mindset stays the same.”
It will be a different week in terms of attention, as Bhatia will have some media demands prior to the tournament and after rounds.
“The hardest thing with kids when they play their first big event, like guys who qualify for a U.S. Open, is they wear themselves out before the tournament,” Terrell said. “We’ve had conversations about he doesn’t have to go out there and practice eight hours a day and play 18 holes.”
Bhatia has attempted to Monday qualify for PGA Tour and Web.com Tour events about 15 times, and has come close a couple times in the go-low shootouts. He got within one shot at the RSM Classic and the Wyndham Championship last year, and was in a playoff for a Web.com event.
“I’ve been right there. It’s just the little things as far as experience-wise that would have gotten me through,” said Bhatia, who is left-handed. “Overall it’s made me a lot better player mentally battling against yourself because you can’t make a mistake.”
“He’s not going to be awestruck at all,” Terrell said. “He’s played all over the world so he’s very good at adjusting to golf courses. He’s a pretty smart player and he’s a hell of a student of the game, so he’ll be well-prepared. It won’t be for lack of skill or development if he doesn’t perform well. It’s another opportunity for him to see where his game is.”
Early signs
Neither of Bhatia’s parents – his father Sonny sold his piece of a real estate company to his partners in 2008 and retired, and his mother Renu operates an event planning business that involves golf and does some business on the Grand Strand – are very good golfers.
But Sonny recognized something in his son when he followed his older sister, Rhea, who is in her fourth year playing at Queens University in Charlotte, into the game.
“In the beginning you could tell he had an extra gear, the way he visualizes a golf course or a shot, it’s very different from your average golfer, even at 11 or 12,” Sonny said. “I definitely saw something was there that, ‘we can hone in on this, and if he has the will and desire and believes in himself we’ll keep going with it,’ and here we are today.
“. . . If your kid has a desire and belief to be something then as a parent it’s our responsibility no matter what to get them there and support them in whatever their dreams are. That’s all we’ve done.”
The Bhatia family lived in suburban Los Angeles before moving to Wake Forest in 2011 for multiple reasons – they liked the area after discovering it when Bhatia played in an international junior tournament in Pinehurst, N.C., liked the availability and affordability of golf, and wanted to get Sonny care from eye specialists at Duke University Hospital. He had surgery in 2007 to remove a benign tumor on the optic nerve of his left eye, which took away his vision in the eye.
“Everything was too fast and quick for us out there. It wasn’t good for me and I don’t think it would have been good for the kids,” Sonny said of L.A.
Bhatia began playing by mimicking the swings of PGA Tour players and practicing religiously. “Whoever was playing really well during tournaments on the PGA I would try to copy their swings,” he said.
He had a baseball-like grip in which his right thumb was wrapped around the club before a broken right wrist led to the adjustment to a traditional golf grip. He hit golf balls with the cast on, which forced him to change the grip in order to hold onto the club. “Once I got the cast off I started gripping it normally,” he said. “It’s crazy how it changed like that. If I had the grip I had I don’t think I’d be as good as I am now.”
Bhatia is a member at TPC Wakefield through owner McConnell Golf’s junior scholarship program, so that has helped the family financially.
Sonny said he has put much of the expenses from his son’s training and playing career on credit cards, and they’ve run up quite a bill. “It’s up there,” Sonny said. “We don’t come from money. A lot of the stuff, initially when we started, we said just put it on the credit card and we’ll figure it all out as we go along. Whatever we had we just used it because we believed in him.”
Top instruction
The spending included finding the best instruction, which is now a tag-team effort between Terrell and Southern California-based coach George Gankas, who Terrell has known for a few years through Johnson.
Gankas is close to the family of Johnson’s fiancée Paulina Gretzky and teaches her younger brother Tristan, as well as some PGA and Web.com tour players and 2018 NCAA freshman of the year Matthew Wolff of Oklahoma State.
The first instructor Bhatia went to see was Cameron McCormick, who is Jordan Spieth’s coach in Dallas, where Bhatia has an older sister. “I saw him for a few lessons and didn’t really connect with him,” Bhatia said.
Bhatia’s cousin was working with Gankas before Gankas rose to fame with talented young players, and Bhatia began getting instruction from him about four years ago. “He was really just a nobody. To see what he’s done is cool. He’s awesome,” Bhatia said.
Terrell has been instructing him for about three years. Bhatia became aware of Terrell when he played in the inaugural Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship.
“After my first lesson with him it has changed me so much,” Bhatia said of Terrell. “He’s so smart and he’s brought Dustin to become the No. 1 player in the world. . . . He really wants to make sure I take ownership of my game and that’s the biggest thing for me. It’s awesome. It’s been a great ride with him.”
Bhatia said having two swing instructors hasn’t been confounding.
“Over the last couple years the swing has gotten really repeatable,” Bhatia said. “My swing hasn’t really changed in the past couple years, though it has gotten better and better fundamentally.”
Terrell believes the two-instructor approach can be successful and sustainable. He has worked with Johnson throughout his pupil’s affiliation with instructors Butch Harmon and son Claude Harmon III.
“I do it every day with Dustin so I’m pretty comfortable with it,” Terrell said. “It only works if both coaches have the right intentions. Are we doing this because we want to get recognition, or are we doing this to help the kid get better, and George just cares that Shay plays good golf.
“We talk back and forth on what’s going on and since he’s over here it’s a little easier for me to keep an eye on him.”
Both will be at Innisbrook this week, at Bhatia’s request. Gankas will be there for the first three days of the week and Terrell will be there for the tournament rounds.
“That’s going to be a great experience. Having both of them there for my first PGA Tour experience is going to be awesome,” Bhatia said.
Meteoric rise
The formula is working.
Bhatia has dominated junior golf in the past year. He is the only two-time winner of the Junior PGA Championship – winning with a record total score that included a round of 61 in 2017 and chipping in for eagle on the final hole to win by a shot in 2018 – has won the Rolex Tournament of Champions, Polo Golf Junior Classic and Junior Invitational at Sage Valley, and was a runner-up at the Youth Olympic Games, Junior Players Championship and U.S. Junior.
In the DJ World Junior at TPC Myrtle Beach earlier this month, Bhatia, claimed a six-shot win at 10-under par, shattered the tournament scoring record by five shots and equaled TPC’s 54-hole tournament record of 206, set in 2007 by East Tennessee State’s Rhys Davies in the General Hackler Championship collegiate event.
The Jones Cup win was another level, against many of the top collegiate players and seasoned amateurs. Champions since its inception in 2001 include Justin Thomas, Patrick Reed, Kyle Stanley, Beau Hossler, Luke List, D.J. Trahan, Corey Conners, Gregg Jones and Nicholas Thompson.
Bhatia is playing like a top amateur but he’s not yet built like one. He is 6-foot and about 130 pounds, and has been attempting to add weight since last summer through a workout regimen and increased diet, gaining about 7 pounds since November.
“It’s not much but I am gaining some weight, which is nice. It’s not fun being skinny and having no butt, you know. It would be nice to look better,” said Bhatia, who said he wants to improve his physique as much for girls as his golf game.
He said his swing speed has increased from about 113 mph to 120 mph over the past eight months, and his carry with a driver off the tee is now more than 300 yards. “I want to make everything a little more effortless and compact,” he said.
Turning pro
Bhatia has known since eighth grade he wanted to eschew college.
He has the freedom to play and practice because he is homeschooled through online classes, and said he is on pace to graduate with a high school diploma this spring.
“I like having my own schedule. Sometimes I don’t agree with people trying to tell me what to do with how I need to practice or something like that,” Bhatia said. “I’ve never liked school, either. I’ve always had the worst attention span when it comes to sitting in the classroom. I feel I have a really, really good plan to be really successful in the next ‘x’ amount of years. I have all the resources I need.
“I know for a fact I have the game to play against those guys [on the Web.com and PGA tours], it’s just they have more experience than me and that’s what it’s going to take for me is just to learn really quick how to get used to the environment out there.”
Terrell supports Bhatia’s decision to turn pro within a year, and believes it might be the correct choice considering his independent practice regimen, aversion to schoolwork and level of his game.
“I don’t think college golf is for everyone,” Terrell said. ““From a balance perspective, if he doesn’t go to college my biggest thing is he’ll have to find some other hobby to get away from the game. . . . You have to get away for your mental energy. I think the only thing college golf would do for him would give him some balance, but it doesn’t outweigh the other things that would probably not benefit him.”
Bhatia is in demand from prospective agents and management agencies, and he expects to select an agent for his pro debut within a couple months, so he’ll likely have a nest egg to support his career.
He intends to go through the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament to gain playing status, though he anticipates receiving up to seven PGA Tour sponsor exemptions as a highly-ranked amateur and Monday qualifiers are still an option. He has another exemption into the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic based on his Jones Cup win.
Rhea is expected to assist him on the road after she graduates this spring with a communications degree. “She’s definitely going to be a good asset for him,” Sonny said.
Despite getting a PGA Tour start, Bhatia is still looking forward to upcoming amateur and possibly junior events because although his game belies it, he did just turn 17.
“Pro golf is really fun and I can’t wait to be out there, but at the same time you get to hang out with your friends and familiar faces at amateur and junior events, and it’s hard to beat it because the courses we play are awesome,” he said. “I love just playing tournaments. I love competing.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2019 at 11:12 PM.