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Akshay Bhatia hit a tremendous shot on Thursday at the Memorial Tournament. The golfer opted to go DOD, which stands for Driver Off the Deck. This refers to hitting the ball with a driver anywhere without using a tee.
Tees help elevate the ball so that a driver can get flush contact without hitting the ground first. The irons are made to make contact with the ground sometimes during a shot if necessary, but drivers don't. If the driver hits the ground, there may have been an issue, which is why a DOD shot is so challenging.
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Bhatia's DOD shot rolled past the cup by a good bit, but it was close and on line. Had it been hit a few feet to the left, there's a very good chance the golfer would've made it in. The original caption of the post by the PGA Tour, which has since been edited, said he nearly holed out, but others in the comments section disagreed with that idea.
The wonderful approach shot did help Bhatia, even if he didn't quite come close to holing out for what would've been one of the best shots of the entire weekend. At the time of writing, Bhatia had concluded his opening round at two under and was tied for fourth behind Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa, and Ben Griffin.
Akshay Bhatia opens up on some struggles he's endured
Akshay Bhatia may be competing now. He may have also finished top 25 at the Charles Schwab Challenge (despite a +4 round). He isn't happy with his game, though. Particularly, his driver is giving him trouble.
“The biggest thing right now is my driver. I’ve been just really, really struggling. I have one or two really bad golf swings that, I mean, cost me a lot of shots,” he was quoted as saying by Golf.com.
Bhatia didn't struggle using a driver off the fairway on Thursday, but the club has not been as reliable as he wants.
“My golf swing is not where I wanted it to be, and it’s been an adjustment for me coach and I. I used to live right down the street from him ( California), and now we’re in different states. I used to see him so frequently,” he added.
He noted that he's been able to withstand some struggles in his golf game by just remaining confident, something he's never really had trouble with. In some instances, like last year, he was "extra confident," though he admitted he wasn't trying to sound "cocky" to the media.
