Flourtown (Pennsylvania, USA), May 9: Indian-American golfer Akshay Bhatia struck 10 birdies in a brilliant opening-round card of seven-under 63 to grab a share of the third spot in the Truist Championship here.
Bhatia was placed alongside Rickie Fowler, Colin Morikawa and Sepp Straka on the leaderboard. He is two strokes behind leader, Keith Mitchell (61), and one behind Denny McCarthy (62).
Indo-British player Aaron Rai turned in a five-under 65 to be placed tied 11th. Another Indian-American Sahith Theegala managed a modest one-under 69 and is placed tied 55th after the first day.
Mitchell, who is one of the four sponsor exemption this week, shot 61 that shattered the course record at the Philadelphia Cricket Club. The previous Wissahickon Course record of 65 was shared by Colin St Maxen, Zac Blair and Angus Flanagan.
Bhatia had 10 birdies, the best in the field, and three bogeys in his 63. Starting on the back-nine, he birdied the 10th before dropping a shot on the 11th hole. Following this, Bhatia fired five consecutive birdies from the 13th to the 17th hole.
On the front-nine of the Wissahickon course, Bhatia dropped a shot on the first hole before making a run of three consecutive birdies between the fourth and sixth holes. He dropped another shot on the eighth and closed with a 13-foot birdie on the ninth hole.
Bhatia’s putting, made possible after some good iron play, helped in achieving the low score. He was tied first for putts per greens in regulation.
“Yeah, it felt like I didn’t have many long putts today. For that stretch (five in a row from the 13th to the 17th after starting on the 10th) especially, I felt like I was kind of just hitting my numbers and hitting it pretty close,” Bhatia said after his round.
“Definitely a solid day to start. Made a couple of mistakes. Just got to clean up some of the longer putts and get more comfortable with my driver. That’s kind of been the issue for me these last four or five weeks. Just trying to slowly but surely get a little bit better with the long driver,” he added. (PTI)
