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ORLANDO, Fla. — Arnold Palmer was well-known for saying, “You have to play boldly to win,” and Akshay Bhatia adopted that script Sunday in a shocking comeback win on the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Bhatia began his back-nine cost with 4 straight birdies. He almost holed his 6-iron on the par-5 sixteenth to arrange eagle. And he outlasted Daniel Berger with a par on the primary playoff gap to win at Bay Hill.
“You simply by no means know what can occur on this recreation,” Bhatia mentioned after he closed with a 3-under 69 and gained his third PGA Tour title, all of them in playoffs.
This was the largest, a $20 million signature occasion that strikes the 24-year-old into the highest 20 on this planet at first of a giant stretch in golf that concludes with the Masters subsequent month.
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Berger regarded like he had this gained, strolling confidently after photographs in constructing a four-shot lead on the flip. He misplaced the lead by lacking a 7-foot par putt on the seventeenth gap and confirmed loads of moxie simply to get into the playoff with an up-and-down from 70 yards for par on the ultimate gap for a 70.
They completed at 15-under 273 to drive the primary playoff at Bay Hill since 1999.
Berger, who hit his tee shot into the correct tough on the 18th in regulation, pulled his drive within the playoff and did nicely to hammer a 6-iron to the entrance fringe of the inexperienced, 106 ft away. He rolled that to 7 ft beneath the opening, and his par putt to increase the playoff was weak and missed beneath the cup.
Bhatia, who took on the normal Sunday flag on the 18th over the rock-framed water in regulation and almost pulled it off, performed to the middle of the inexperienced within the playoff. He took two putts from simply inside 30 ft for the win and the $4 million prize.
“Everybody is aware of once you present as much as Bay Hill it is going to be a check,” Bhatia mentioned.
It was each little bit of that. He was 5 photographs behind on the flip when he ran off 4 straight birdies, one among them from simply inside 60 ft on the eleventh gap. There was a two-shot swing on the thirteenth when Bhatia holed a 10-foot birdie putt and Berger had a plugged lie in a bunker, going through a shot to the crispy inexperienced with water on the opposite aspect. He neatly performed again towards the green and salvaged a bogey, his lead down to at least one shot.
The ultimate hour turned electrical on the par-5 sixteenth, with a pin tucked to the left close to the water. Bhatia hit 6-iron excessive and true, and it almost went into the cup on the second bounce to arrange a 3-foot eagle. Berger made birdie to remain one forward.
Bhatia was the one participant to hit second shot inside 10 ft of the sixteenth gap all day. He mentioned caddie Joe Greiner instructed him, “Simply attempt to hit one of the best 6-iron of your life.”
“It was a type of skilled pushes,” he mentioned. “I wasn’t attempting to intention on the flag.”
Berger, who has misplaced massive chunks of time lately with a again harm after which a damaged finger suffered final August, was attempting to turn into the primary wire-to-wire winner at Bay Hill in 10 years.
“It is powerful to win. It is powerful to battle,” he mentioned. “A shot right here or there was the distinction.”
That goes for Bhatia, too. He and Berger returned Sunday morning to complete the third spherical. Berger had a three-shot lead till the 18th gap, when he made bogey from the correct tough and Bhatia made birdie when his 10-foot putt held on the lip for slightly below 10 seconds after which dropped.
Berger’s comfort prize, other than the $2.2 million for ending second, was incomes a spot within the British Open and transferring nicely into the highest 40 on this planet, which ought to make him protected to return to the Masters subsequent month.
Cameron Younger, who used to spend his winters in Orlando as a child, performed bogey-free for a 69 and tied for third with Ludvig Åberg (67).
Scottie Scheffler took one other double bogey on the 18th gap — his second in as many rounds and his third double bogey in his final 19 holes at Bay Hill — for a 73. He tied for twenty fourth, his worst end on tour since a T-25 on the Phoenix Open in February 2025. It was the primary time because the U.S. Open final yr that he failed to interrupt 70 at a match.
Info from The Related Press was used on this report.
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