{"id":28104,"date":"2026-03-09T11:20:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T09:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=28104"},"modified":"2026-03-09T11:20:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T09:20:55","slug":"akshay-bhatia-tops-field-in-strokes-gained","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/akshay-bhatia-tops-field-in-strokes-gained\/","title":{"rendered":"Akshay Bhatia tops field in strokes gained"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">American Akshay Bhatia wiped out a five-stroke deficit for a dramatic come-from-behind victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">He beat fellow American Daniel Berger on the first play-off hole for a third win on the Professional Golfers&#8217; Association<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">(PGA) Tour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Bhatia missed a 30 inch par putt to fall five shots behind in the final round and that made him angry enough to want to do something about it<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">What followed was a charge on the back nine at Bay Hill that would have made King Arnold proud.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The 24-year-old made four birdies and an eagle for a five-under-par 31 on the back nine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">His three-under 69 for a total of 173, 15-under, was good enough to get him into a playoff with Berger after the duo finished three strokes clear of their closest rivals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Bhatia only needed a par on the 18th to close out the win, his third in a play-off on the PGA Tour, and will now move into the top 20 on the Official World Golf Rankings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16418,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-28104","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Palmer Invitational golf tournament","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28105,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28104\/revisions\/28105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=28104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}