The First Look: Farmers Insurance Open

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico - Akshay Bhatia won't reach legal drinking age in the United States until January 31, 2023. But he's quickly proving that he's of age to contend on the PGA TOUR. The 18-year-old Monday qualified into this week's Mayakoba Golf Classic presented by UNIFIN, and he's maximizing his opportunity. Bhatia has opened in rounds of 67-69 at El Camaleon GC, comfortably inside the top-15 midway through the final full-field TOUR event of the 2020 calendar year. There was a learning curve for Bhatia, to be sure. He missed the cut in his first seven TOUR starts, admitting that urgency to earn Special Temporary Membership was too much of a focal point. Bhatia made his first TOUR cut at the Safeway Open in September, finishing T9. A weight was lifted, and he's continuing to display his immense potential in Mexico. "After that, I felt like I belonged," said Bhatia of the significance around his Safeway Open top-10. "It showed I could play, that I could score well. I feel like I'm doing everything right as far as practice ... I feel like my good is good enough, and that I can compete out here. So it's just a matter of time. "I'm excited to keep playing out here, and for the opportunities that I've gotten." After turning professional in fall 2019, Bhatia missed by six strokes at Second Stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament last fall. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, putting on hold his efforts of earning TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour starts via Monday qualifiers. There may have been a silver lining, though. Bhatia carved out a mini-tour schedule that extended through the summer months, building confidence by stacking low rounds. While several his age are debating their college choices, Bhatia is developing a veteran mindset in the professional golf ranks. "I haven't really thought about it," said Bhatia when asked whether Special Temporary Membership has been on his mind this week. "Any chance I get to play the PGA TOUR, I'm just going to try to play as well as I can. "If you asked me that last year, I would've been thinking about that a lot, and it's just amazing how much experience can change perspective over a year. Being 18, it's helped me a lot versus 17." Bhatia was born in southern California and now lives in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, where he plays out of TPC Wakefield Plantation. There, he has cultivated a frequent practice-round grouping with TOUR winners Chesson Hadley and Grayson Murray, as well as Korn Ferry Tour pro Stephen Franken. He's learning the value placed on low scores in professional golf - noting the confidence gained via carding rounds of 62 and 63 in mini-tour events this summer - and embracing lessons shared by his veteran practice partners. "It's fun just having a good, solid group of guys that like to play and can help each other out with experience," Bhatia said. "I had a really good summer in mini-tour events and just learning how to be in contention, how to shoot low ... and that's what you have to do out here." Bhatia could earn TOUR Special Temporary Membership (which brings the ability to accept unlimited sponsor's exemptions) by accruing 288 non-member FedExCup Points - the equivalent of No. 150 on the 2018-19 FedExCup standings. He earned 70 non-member Points via his Safeway Open finish, and could move further toward the mark with a strong weekend in Mexico. He's no longer thinking along those lines, though. He's enjoying the competition amongst the mangroves at El Camaleon GC, and looking forward to the weekend ahead. "I've got to say," Bhatia said, "it's pretty fun being able to compete with these guys."

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ORLANDO – What happened to Graeme McDowell? This is a question that McDowell, 39, has gone to great lengths to try to answer, and is still trying to answer in real time. Mr. Everything in 2010, when he won the U.S. Open, the decisive point for Europe in the Ryder Cup, and two events on the European Tour, he has accrued just one top-10 finish in his last 47 PGA TOUR starts. His T10 at the 2017 Shriners Hospitals for Children seems like a long time ago, and a highlight unworthy of his talent. “I think people would look at me the last four or five years and say that I’ve got caught up in other things and lost my focus on what I’m doing,â€� McDowell told the PGA TOUR recently. “Is that true or false? Did I get married and have children? Yeah. Did that take my focus off what I was doing? Maybe.â€� And yet here is McDowell again, trying to dig himself out, as he put it after carding a 4-under 68 in the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. He was T3 after the first round, his best start since the 2015 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational (now WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational), when he shot 66 and went on to finish T17. McDowell is scheduled to tee off Friday at 1:19 p.m. ET. It’s been a busy week so far. D.A. Points and Francesco Molinari each aced the par-3 seventh hole. There were 94 balls hit in the water in round one, the most of any round at Bay Hill since 2003. Phil Mickelson tried to hit a right-handed shot through a mesh fence, and failed. Still, the longest accounting of this Arnold Palmer Invitational was McDowell’s two-plus-page transcript after the first round. The recipient of the 2014 ASAP Sports/Jim Murray Award for accommodating the media, he’s always been one of the game’s great talkers. “Interesting to see a lot of Europeans playing well here,â€� he said, presciently. He was talking about Spain’s Rafa Cabrera Bello, who fired an opening 65, but, in a way, also predicting the second-round surge of England’s Tommy Fleetwood (66, 9-under total), who shot into the lead. “It’s a real fairway-and-green golf course,â€� McDowell added. “The rough’s very penal this week, and the greens are very firm.â€� Every course has seemed penal for McDowell of late, and true to form, he has owned up to it, for he is not only verbose, he is candid. (Somewhere there’s a television career out there with his name on it.) Thursday brought more gems from G-Mac, who has lived at nearby Lake Nona since shortly after his runner-up at the 2005 API. He laughed about a complication of sleeping in your own bed during a tournament: trying to get the kids to go to sleep. “It’s literally just life,â€� he said of his slow fade over last five years or so. “Life. Life just got in the way. Mostly the family stuff, and I don’t think I ever sat back and rested on my laurels and thought I was — I just, my practice changed. The time that I was giving to the game changed and I was less effective in what I was doing. It snuck up on me. “It sort of happened before I realize it had happened,â€� he added. How many golfers are that self-reflective? How many athletes? How many people? Still, there are all sorts of reasons to be excited if you’re McDowell, who is playing out of the 125-150 category from last season’s FedExCup. He’s twice finished runner-up at Bay Hill, including 2012, when he shot a 9-under 63 in the second round and earned a final-round pairing with Tiger Woods. (McDowell finished second to Woods, five back.) And he’s playing better than his results indicate at 117th in the FedExCup and 259th in the world. Also, the U.S. Open will return to Pebble Beach, site of his 2010 victory. (He’s already in the field thanks to his 10-year exemption.) And The Open Championship will be held near his boyhood home at Royal Portrush, Northern Ireland. He’s not in that field, but could earn a spot as the API is now part of the Open Qualifying Series; the top three finishers in the top 10 not otherwise qualified will earn spots in the field. McDowell only found this out Tuesday. He doesn’t want to obsess, so he’s trying not to think about it. “It’s hard to do because I want it really badly,â€� he said. “I want to be back up there competing with these guys and I do feel like I have some good stuff in me. But I’ve had to ask myself some pretty hard questions the last couple years. Thankfully, I’ve came to the conclusion that if it was all gone, I would miss it. So, you know what, let’s try and enjoy it while it’s here. “It’s an opportunity,â€� he added. “It’s not an opportunity to beat my head against the wall, it’s an opportunity to try and dig myself out of a hole and look at that challenge as something to be enjoyed, and it’s going to be very rewarding when I do get out of it.â€�

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For decades — centuries, maybe? — golf shoes were boring. Now golf shoes are getting a makeover — and a personality.

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