Saturday's golf: Bhatia birdies final 2 holes for a 4-shot lead in Texas Open
San Antonio — Akshay Bhatia wrote a reminder on his wrist Saturday before the third round of the Valero Texas Open to “Race My Race.” The idea was to not worry about anything but his own golf, and that gave the rest of the field plenty to worry about.
Bhatia birdied his last two holes at the TPC San Antonio for a 4-under 68, taking a four-shot lead over Denny McCarthy into the final round as he tries to get the last spot in the Masters.
McCarthy was the only player who managed to stay close to the 22-year-old Bhatia, and his three birdies in a four-hole stretch in the middle of the back nine enabled him to cut the lead to two shots. He closed with three pars for a 67.
Bhatia hit a perfect drive on the reachable par-4 17th to just short of the green, which featured a front pin. His pitch wasn't anything special, but he holed a 12-foot putt. On the closing par 5, he laid up and hit wedge to a back pin to just inside 10 feet and made the birdie putt.
Bhatia was at 15-under 201. After McCarthy, the next closest player to the lead was Brendon Todd, who shot 70 and was seven shots behind.
The message was related to Bhatia's work with a psychologist, as he has been working extra hard on the mental side of his game. There was a temptation to worry about matters outside his swing, how he would deal with a large lead or if he had lost the lead.
So the message behind “Race My Race?”
“Going at my own pace, focusing on myself, keeping the blinders right in front of me,” Bhatia said. ”I look at that all the time because you can get caught up in a lot of things out here and if I’m just kind of doing my own thing and trying not to let outside stuff bother me, then I just can focus on myself. And whatever the outcome is, it is."
Jordan Spieth provided plenty of entertainment, not necessarily good for his score. He opened with a pair of bogeys. He had four birdies to get into the top 10. And then he played the 18th.
His drive was well to the left near the base of a tree. Spieth chose to go further left because there was no out-of-bounds, and he advance that some 80 yards. Then he tried to go toward the green, except it landed on a roof and rolled into the roof's gutter.
After free relief, he punched out of rough onto the green about 45 feet away, leaving him a chance for him to make par. Instead, he left the putt 8 feet short and three-putted for a double bogey. All that for a 72.
Rory McIlroy opened with a double bogey, got those two shots back with birdies, dropped further back with a pair of bogeys on the back nine and finished with two birdies. It wasn't quiet as adventurous as Spieth, but he also shot 72 and was 10 behind in his final tournament before going to the Masters.
A victory would give Bhatia the final spot in the Masters, set aside in case the Texas Open winner is not already exempt. He also would be exempt for the U.S. Open with his second victory since last June. Bhatia won the Barracuda Championship last summer, which was held opposite the British Open.
McCarthy has never won on the PGA Tour, but he makes his Augusta National debut next week from being in the top 50 in the world ranking.
Bhatia's lead is the largest in 20 years at the Texas Open. McCarthy has his work cut out.
“There's no pressure. He’s playing really good golf. I know I’m going to have to go out and play another solid round of golf,” McCarthy said. “I’m looking forward to the challenge tomorrow. I’m going to go out and try to play some free golf.”
LPGA
Top-ranked Nelly Korda advanced to the semifinals of the T-Mobile Match Play on Saturday by defeating fellow American and Solheim Cup teammate Angel Yin 3 and 2 at Shadow Creek Golf Course in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
“This course is brutal, especially in this weather,” Korda said. “It was so cold this morning. I'm happy to get a couple of rounds under my belt, and hopefully that will help me in my next match.”
In the other quarterfinal matches, 2020 LPGA Tour Player of the Year Sei Young Kim defeated Rose Zhang 6 and 5, Leona Maguire beat Moriya Jutanugarn 4 and 3 and Narin An eliminated Minami Katsu 1 up.
Korda will face An and Maguire will play Kim in the semifinals Saturday afternoon. The final is Sunday.
Korda is attempting to win her fourth tournament in a row. Lorena Ochoa in 2008 was the last player to accomplish that.
Augusta Women's Amateur
Lottie Woad watched the Augusta National Women's Amateur in Augusta, Georgia, when it began in 2019, and she has watched the Masters even longer. To find herself in Butler Cabin on Saturday to join the long list of champions was surreal.
And how she got there was even more amazing.
Two shots behind with five holes to play, the 20-year-old from England delivered a charge that would hold its own against some of the greatest finishes at Augusta National. Woad birdied three of her last four holes for a 3-under 69 and a one-shot victory.
“I was hoping it was going to be like a nice stress-free day, but it was far from that,” Woad said. “In the end, it's a cooler way to finish.”
Arnold Palmer in 1960 and Mark O'Meara in 1998 are the only players to birdie the last two holes at Augusta National to win by a single shot. Woad did it with a wedge to 10 feet for birdie on the 17th, and a 9-iron to 15 feet to set up the winner.
Bailey Shoemaker could only watch after finishing with a bogey-free 66, the best round of the day that looked like a winner until Load came through in the clutch.
“Good for her, especially under pressure, knowing she had to do it. That's amazing,” said Shoemaker, a USC freshman. “I'm obviously disappointed, but at the end of the day, I played about as good as I could have.”
Woad finished at 8-under 208. The victory gets her into every LPGA major except the Women's PGA Championship, starting with the Chevron Championship in two weeks.
Woad started the final round with a two-shot lead and fell behind when Shoemaker made her sixth and final birdie, and posted at 7-under par.
And then it got worse for the Florida State sophomore. Woad did just about everything wrong on the par-5 13th – a bad tee shot, the wrong layup, a terrible wedge and a putt down the slope she thought might go into the tributary of Rae's Creek. It added a bogey on a birdie hole, and she was two behind.
And then she drove into the trees on the 14th and had no chance of hitting the green. Woad made a 10-foot par putt that she considered more valuable than any of her closing birdies.
“If I made bogey there, I was definitely out of it,” Woad said.
She holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-5 15th and narrowly made one from about the same distance on the next hole.
She set up her last two birdies with ideal drives, leaving her 104 yards to the back pin on the 17th and making the 10-foot birdie putt, and then hitting 9-iron from 130 yards on the 18th to 15 feet behind the hole.
The winning putt was good all the way, and Woad lightly pumped her fist.
“You're now a part of Augusta National history,” Masters Chairman Fred Ridley said in Butler Cabin, where Woad received a trophy, but no green jacket.
Woad said the victory was another reminder that “I'm never out of it.”
“When it was tough out there, I hung in there. That’s going to give me a lot of confidence,” she said. “Mistakes are bound to happen around this course. I just stayed relatively calm and knew that I could get some back.”
Shoemaker played brilliantly to the dangerous left pin on the par-4 11th and made her final birdie on the par-3 16th with a tee shot that narrowly cleared the bunker by the pond and settled 3 feet away.
Shoemaker had more history at Augusta National, playing practice rounds the last two years and competing in the Drive, Chip and Putt Finals in 2018 in the Girls 12-13 division.
“I came runner-up in that, too,” Shoemaker said with a smile. “It's an amazing place, awesome that women's golf is taking a turn for the better.”
Ingrid Lindblad of Sweden, the No. 1 player in the women's amateur ranking and a fifth-year senior at LSU, had to settle for her third top-3 finish.
She started four shots behind but never got closer than two shots, closing with a 69 to finish alone in third. Lindblad was runner-up at the Augusta National Women's Amateur in 2022 and tied for third in 2021.
“I feel every time I come in here, I just have a smile on my face. It doesn’t matter how it goes,” Lindblad said. “You’re happy to be here. It’s such an amazing experience and a test for your golf game for sure.”