Akshay Storms Back To Win API, Rahm Chucks Weight Off His Shoulders, And The Glaring Scheffler Conundrum

Akshay Bhatia stepped up when it mattered the most over the weekend to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. While it marked the third PGA Tour win of his career, this one carries a different pedigree, and the way he got the job done vaults him into an entirely different class of player.

On the other side of the planet, Jon Rahm stepped into something he had missed for more than 500 days: the winner's circle. The Spaniard, finally finding victory again with the Masters fast approaching, rightfully puts him back into the conversation of players to watch at Augusta National, because before his win in Hong Kong, he had looked as non-threatening as he had in years. 

Speaking of non-threatening players, that was shockingly what Scottie Scheffler was at Bay Hill. While it was premature to sound the alarms about the No. 1 player in the world before this past weekend, there is a concern about one piece of his game that we haven't seen spike like this in quite some time.

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Akshay Bhatia, Welcome To A New Club

It's starting to look like the decision to skip out on college and turn professional at the age of 17 was the correct one for Akshay Bhatia. While he did grind (and win) on mini tours for two years after turning pro in 2019, it's been a steady climb for the now 24-year-old out of North Carolina.

Bhatia won on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022, earned his first win on Tour the following year, won the Valero Texas Open in 2024, and while he didn't check the victory box in 2025, a win at Arnie's Place over the weekend keeps the career trajectory arrow very much pointing in the right direction.

Bhatia trailed Daniel Berger by five shots at one point during Sunday's final round at Bay Hill, but kept to his game plan and rode his insanely hot putter down the stretch. The story of the week for the eventual champ was how well he played the back nine. 

Heading into Sunday's final round, Bhatia was 10-under on the back nine for the week. Naturally, it was the 10th hole when he began his comeback to eventually force a playoff with Berger. Four straight birdies to begin the back nine on Sunday before a bogey-eagle run on the 15th and 16th holes was just good enough to catch Berger at 15-under and force extra holes, yet Bhatia only needed one to snatch the signature victory.

During his post-win press conference, Bhatia showed some vulnerability and candidness, explaining how it felt to get the job done.

"Yeah, I mean just proving to myself I can do it," Bhatia began, when asked about this being a breakthrough win. "I think I went through a stretch last year where I was in contention, and then felt like, not impossible, but it felt like it took a lot of learning from each day that I didn't play well. So again, this is another big step for me going from a non-full or a, you know, I won a full-field event, I won the Barracuda, which is an opposite field event, and now winning a Signature Event is huge. So I'm excited. 

"This is amazing. I never really thought that I could really do this with that amount of pressure. I feel like I've shied away from that. And today I just, I dug down, I believed in what I could do and I executed nicely."

While Bhatia is still only 24-years-old, he's been a professional for seven years now, so for him to still admit that he didn't know if he could win under that pressure and then to go and see it through on one of the biggest stages on Tour is not just a major feat on paper, but personally as well.

With the win, Bhatia is now ranked 19th in the Official World Golf Ranking, which he certainly looked like a Top 20 player in the game this week.

Jon Rahm Remembers How To Win

It turns out that Jon Rahm didn't entirely forget how to win a golf tournament. Who would've thought that a guy with two major championships to his name still knows how to get the job done?

The fact that the Spaniard went 539 days without finding the winner's circle is a shocking figure on the surface, but his drought was a tad overblown, given that he did put together a fine 2025 campaign. Rahm finished inside the Top 10 at both the PGA Championship and U.S. Open a year ago, while also losing in a playoff on two occasions in LIV events.

Relative to expectation, sure, folks can argue that Rahm should never go 500-plus days without a victory, but winning a golf tournament is not easy. He did, however, make things look rather simple in Hong Kong this week with his three-stroke victory after an impressive final round of 64 to outduel Thomas Detry and company.

Rahm was honest about his emotions after getting the job done in China.

"Very relieving," Rahm said on Sunday. "That's the only way I can describe it. I've been very ecstatic for wins in the past. This one just feels like a big weight off my shoulder. That's all I can say."

Rahm has to be especially relieved to throw that weight off of his shoulders a month ahead of the Masters. Heading to Augusta National, where he has a very strong track record behind his victory in 2023, with a recent win should certainly free him up, and could also deliver similar vibes to when he did put on the green jacket.

Rahm was unconscious heading into the ‘23 Masters, having won three times on the PGA Tour that year before driving down Magnolia Lane. He’ll tee it up in two more LIV events before heading to this year's Masters, only looking to fine-tune things before the year's first major championship.

The Curious Case Of Scottie Scheffler

The fact that the golf world is showing concern about Scottie Scheffler's game at the moment is actually just a compliment about how great he is. We're talking about a player who won his first start of 2026, and over his other four starts this season went T-3, T-4, T-12, and T-24.

Scheffler isn't playing bad golf relative to the rest of the world, but to his standard, his performance at the Arnold Palmer was odd, at the very least.

Scheffler lost 0.74 strokes in approach to the field at Bay Hill in large part to his really, really poor day with the irons during the third round. The last time he lost strokes in approach in a tournament was the BMW Championship in August 2024, where he finished T-33.

Typically, when Scheffler has a ‘bad’ week, we can circle a handful of bad swings with the driver or just an average week on the greens. He was exactly even in the strokes gained: putting department at Bay Hill, which he more often than not would make up those strokes with his ball striking, but when that's not clicking at World No. 1 levels, the result is going to be a middle-of-the-pack finish like we saw on Sunday.

While the numbers from Bay Hill are glaring, we can't call it a trend, seeing as how he's lost strokes in approach twice in nearly two full years. He will absolutely need his ball striking to take a step forward if he wants to win what would be his third Players Championship this week, but if there is one place he could find that form again, it's at TPC Sawgrass. 

Anyone contemplating writing the man off this week after two slow events is playing a very dangerous game.