MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 12, 2024

Akshay Bhatia

Quick Quotes

Q. You feel pretty comfortable at 3-over?

AKSHAY BHATIA: I have no idea. It was playing pretty hard. We'll see how it shapes out.

Q. What's your take being out here with the Masters?

AKSHAY BHATIA: It's a big welcoming. The wind, the swirling winds was tough. Certain lies, there's not a lot of options to hit it close. It's a pretty tough stretch from 10, 11, 12, and I haven't taken advantage of the par-5s really.

So, yeah, it's a great test, though. It's fun. It's been a crazy couple -- a week or so. Still just going through everything.

Q. You play more in self-defense? What's kind of the attack mode?

AKSHAY BHATIA: You've got to hit it in the right spots. I've short-sided myself a lot, but my short game has been excellent this week. It's just hard to kind of judge the winds. You could hit a great spot with what happens out here. It's really tough for how firm the greens are getting.

Q. What did you gather this week from Phil Mickelson? Have you been able to use some of that knowledge for the course while you were going around?

AKSHAY BHATIA: Just kind of -- he's had plenty of notes from the last 20-plus years. Just kind of where he was going, I was going. Understanding the grass, what happens when it rains, when it doesn't.

Yeah, I've tried to apply some shots that he's kind of recommended. There's still a lot for me to learn. I'm hoping to have two more days to keep plugging along.

Q. Tell us about your 15th in the first round.

AKSHAY BHATIA: The par-5?

Q. Yes.

AKSHAY BHATIA: Wind was swirling there. I just tried to hit it over the green, which I did. I hit it a little further than I thought. Hit a great flop shot to five, six feet, and made that birdie. That was a really big birdie because I knew that layup wasn't too easy.

I just haven't had really any fear of kind of hitting similar shots this week.

Q. You did that today as well. You hit a great flop today as well, didn't you?

AKSHAY BHATIA: I hit a great one on hole 1, and then hole 5 or 6.

Q. 6.

AKSHAY BHATIA: Yeah, I hit a nice one there. A couple, you know, just a lot of different shots. A lot of the shots you need to hit here are either bumps into the slope or flops.

Q. Can you just give us an appreciation of the kind of wind and really how difficult was it out there?

AKSHAY BHATIA: It just swirls so much here. You have kind of like what the baseline is of the wind for the day, but it's just never there. You can get hurt. You can get help. It gets so tricky in the trees.

Generally, I'm a really good wind player, but out here it's just different. It's got a mind of its own. It's interesting.

Q. A lot of people look at you as a 21, 22-year-old, but you've been around as a pro for now five years? Would you say that you've grown over this four or five years? How has it been especially the last two, three weeks?

AKSHAY BHATIA: It's all part of like the process of this life. I've grown every year. Every win has been kind of a stepping stone in my career, Mini Tour events, top 10s, Korn Ferry Tour.

Obviously winning last week was really cool. It's just a different way that I've won. Knowing that I can win with that much pressure, having a six-shot lead kind of go away really quick, it kind of showed I have what it takes to get it done.

Q. How much have you enjoyed the Masters experience so far?

AKSHAY BHATIA: It's amazing obviously. The property is amazing, food, all the fans, everything about it. It's pretty special. It's what makes it so unique.

I've played a lot of TOUR events and one major, and this one obviously stands out, and I can understand why.