Weekly Fantasy Golf Recap: Bhatia Bags Win at Bay Hill

When you are five shots down heading to the back nine on Sunday, and the guy you are chasing is still playing at a pretty high level, things don't look great.

At that point, Akshay Bhatia birdied four straight holes and put on a short-game performance for the ages to chase down Daniel Berger and eventually win the Arnold Palmer Invitational on the first playoff hole on Sunday at Bay Hill.

Still only 24, Bhatia won for the third time in his young PGA Tour career – all of them in playoffs. But this certainly was the best of them. Both in tournament stature -- a Signature Event bearing the name of the great Arnold Palmer -- and in performance.

In getting to 15-under-par, Bhatia registered the best Strokes Gained: Short Game, which combines Around-the-Green and Putting, in the ShotLink Era (since 2001).

If you are scoring at home, that breaks down to 10.605 strokes gained on the greens and 5.664 around the green.

"I think I just had more awareness of what it takes out here to make putts," Bhatia said. "Because I struggled with that last year. My putter slides on these greens, and so I think I figured that out. Figured out a lot of things this week with my coach of just how to attack the golf course. And my speed was great."

After a subpar 2025 and then two missed cuts to open 2026, Bhatia has turned it all around. This was his third top-6 result in his past four starts.

Putting was not Bhatia's problem last season. His wedge was. He ranked 162nd on the season in SG: Around-the-Greens. This season, he's 17th.

Starting on No. 10, Bhatia made putts of 8 feet, 58 feet(!), 8 feet and 11 feet on consecutive holes. But his best shot of the tournament – and maybe his life – was a long iron on the par-5 16th to 3 1/2 feet for a kick-in eagle that left him one down with two to play.

"I think it was 193 yards or 191, and the wind laid down," Bhatia said. "It was a perfect 6-iron. Joe said, you know, just hit one of the best 6-irons of your life right here. And I did."

When your caddie, the veteran Joe Greiner, tells you to hit one of the best shots of your life, it's probably good to listen.

Bhatia has been around a long time for someone still only 24; he skipped college and turned pro when he was 17. The next step for him now would be in the majors – maybe not winning one yet, just contending. He's never finished better than 16th (2024 U.S. Open).

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Daniel Berger
Berger opened with a 63 and was bidding to go wire-to-wire. He led by multiple shots for much of the tournament -- until the back nine on Sunday, in fact. When you lead by four with nine holes to play and don't win, it's a bit of a choke job. But Berger did make a 13-footer for par on 18 to force the playoff. Once the disappointment settles, Berger will realize it was a great week in what's developing into a pretty good season. He was bidding for his first win since 2021, before his career was derailed by a series of injuries. He now has this runner-up to go along with a top-10 and a top-20 this season. Notably, he's ranked 11th in SG: Approach and is fifth in greens in regulation. Now, he heads to TPC Sawgrass at the top of his game; he tied for 20th there last year.

Ludvig Aberg
Aberg tied for third to notch his best showing on Tour since winning the Genesis Invitational a little more than a year ago. He also tied for third at the DP World Tour Championship last year. Overall, it's been a subpar past couple of seasons for Aberg, who had almost slipped out of the top-25 OWGR. But he may finally be showing signs of finding his once A+ game. He's improved in every tournament he's played this year.

Cameron Young
After a slow start to the season, Young has now notched two consecutive top-10s in Signature Events with this tie for third. He remains one of the preeminent drivers in the game – top-50 in both distance and accuracy to rank sixth in SG: Off-the-Tee. And now the rest of his game is rounding into form, just one month out from the first major of the season.

Collin Morikawa
Morikawa has not taken his foot off the gas since ending his long winless drought at Pebble Beach. He tied for seventh at Riviera and now finished solo fifth at Bay Hill. That's three straight top-7s at Signature Events. We know all about his elite approach game. Morikawa's putting is now improving -- he's ranked 105th on Tour, just a smidge below the Tour average. You don't need much more with his kind of iron play.

Russell Henley
News flash: Henley likes Bay Hill. He tied for sixth in defense of his 2025 title there, and tied for fourth the year before. He now has two top-10s and two top-20s in five starts in 2026.

Sahith Theegala
Theegala seems all the way back from an injury-marred 2025. He tied for sixth to collect his third top-8 showing of the season, on top of two other top-25s. He will always go as far as his often wayward driver can take him. At Bay Hill, he ranked 29th in the field in driving accuracy. Theegala also was eighth on approach and second around-the-green. Just really solid numbers.

Min Woo Lee
After winning for the first time on Tour almost a year ago at the Houston Open, Lee did little the rest of the season. But 2026 has brought renewed optimism for the Aussie. He has finished T2-T12-T6 in his past three starts, all of them Signature Events. Lee birdied five holes on the back nine on Sunday to zoom up the leaderboard. 

Rickie Fowler
Fowler quietly has had a very good start to 2026. He already carried three top-20s into Bay Hill and now has a top-10 to go along with them. He tied for ninth. And he's doing all that with absolutely horrible play around the greens, ranking 157th. But he's also 15th in Putting, which can mask a lot of those wedge-game deficiencies.

Jordan Spieth
Spieth got a sponsor's invitation into the API, one year after he controversially didn't. When you get invited, especially to Arnold Palmer's tournament, you want to justify the move. Spieth did. He tied for 11th, adding to his tie for 12th at Riviera. And now it's getting close to Masters time. He hasn't won at Augusta in more than a decade, but Spieth also has two top-5s there in the past five years.

Billy Horschel
Another sponsor invite, Horschel had been abysmal this season as he returned full-time from last season's hip surgery. He tied for 13th, which is great, but it was his first top-25 in seven starts in 2026. We'll need to see more before declaring his troubles over.

Jacob Bridgeman
In his first start since winning at Riviera, Bridgeman opened with a 75 and had to fight to make the cut. He made it and, by tournament's end, had climbed into the top-20 with a tie for 18th. That's a very encouraging result for Bridgeman, when many guys taking a step back after their maiden win.

Scottie Scheffler
A tournament after his top-10 streak ended at 18 straight, Scheffler barely finished in the top 25. What is going on? There was no slow start this time, with a 2-under 70. Instead, that turned out to be his best round of the week. Scheffler is now ranked 88th on Tour in SG: Approach. That would be like another player ranked 188th. He ranked 44th in the field on the week, his worst showing in four years. Scheffler now heads to THE PLAYERS, which he has won two of the past three years.

Rory McIlroy
McIlroy withdrew for only the second time in his career -- and the first time in 13 years -- due to a back injury sustained in the gym. It doesn't seem like anything big, but this is THE PLAYERS coming up. And he's the defending champion. And then the Masters. And he's the defending champion there too. We'll surely find out more before DFS lineups have to lock on Thursday morning.

MISSED CUTS

Justin Thomas, Sungjae Im, Justin Rose, Patrick Cantlay, Ben Griffin, J.J. Spaun, Keegan Bradley, Sam Burns, Jason Day, Shane Lowry. … This was Thomas' first tournament since offseason back surgery. He did have some TGL tuneups. But they didn't seem to help; Thomas finished last in the field on Friday. … Im also was making his season debut after a hand/wrist ailment, and he looked almost as bad as Thomas. … Rose has now gone T37-MC-MC since winning the Farmers. … Cantlay has two missed cuts and zero top-25s so far in 2026. … Neither Griffin or Spaun, two of the rising darlings of 2025, is playing well, especially Spaun. Griffin's only top-20 so far was T19 at the season-opening Sony. Spaun has nothing better than a T40.  … Bradley is another guy slumping through all of 2026 so far; he's missed three cuts in five starts with zero top-25s. … Burns has missed three cuts in his past four starts. … Day has missed two in a row. … Lowry maybe needed a week off to clear his head after his collapse at the Cognizant. At least he got the weekend.

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