Interview: Akshay Bhatia On PGA Tour Life, Super Bowl Appearance

Akshay Bhatia wearing Oakley x Meta smart glasses

INTERVIEW: PGA Tour Star Akshay Bhatia Talks About Training, Goals, And Living His Dream

Up first, we discussed how Akshay Bhatia sets and maintains goals. The goals he’s set for himself in the past and where he wants to go in the future, and how different approaches of setting goals have worked for him throughout the years.

Cass Anderson: In terms of high expectations on yourself, are you a goal oriented kind of person? Do you write them down ever or just have in your head what you want to accomplish? Do you have any goals or milestones for this year you would like to hit?

Akshay Bhatia: I think I have done both. When I first turned pro and before that, I never really had goals. I just played golf and tried to, you know, grow each year. And then 2 years ago, there were some changes with some people on my team and I decided to hire a new mental coach.  We wrote down goals. And it was one of the craziest things for me because I wrote down like 3 or 4 goals where it was like: (1) I wanted to be top 30 in putting. (2) I wanted to make the TOUR Championship. (3) I wanted to play all in 4 majors.  And then I think one of them was like, I wanted to be on the President’s Cup team.

Then I made it to Tour Championship. I won the week before to get into The Masters. I played in all 4 majors.  Then I was top 30 in putting. It was really crazy.

I was like ‘man, I can’t believe I was able to do that.’  Now, you have to almost disconnect from those goals a little bit because, again, it adds pressure if you think about it too much and that’s what I kind of did this last year in ’25 with the Ryder Cup and TOUR Championship. Like I really wanted to make the TOUR championship so bad. And I kind of didn’t have my greatest stuff for a long stretch of golf, maybe a couple months.  I was always finishing like 35th, 40th, and it was just like not very fun. And then I realized if I don’t make TOUR Championship…. If I don’t make top 50, it’ll all be okay. And it kind of freed me up because towards that end of the year I started to play really nice again.

I buckled down and I got to TOUR Championship. So it’s a weird thing.  I’m still trying to figure out for myself what works and what doesn’t. I think the biggest thing is, you know, golf can be/is a very hard game. It can be a cruel game at times. And so really enjoying each week as much as I can and having fun is the hardest thing to do. I think when we compete, because we beat ourselves up so much, because we want to be perfect.

So that’s kind of the thing I’m most excited about. Just trying to take positives from each week. And then I feel like once I can do that and free up, then good golf always comes from that for me and confidence builds. So that’s the thing that I’m gonna work the hardest on and results always come with just being yourself and enjoying being on the golf course.

A Day in the Life

Cass Anderson: What does a typical non-tournament day look like for you these days?

Akshay Bhatia: Typically, it’s like, I go see my trainer around 9. Work out for an hour, come back home, eat breakfast, have a protein shake and everything, shower.

We have a couple dogs. So I’ll walk them and then I’ll go out to the golf course and depending on the day and depending who’s around at home, we either play or I’ll practice for a while.

I think leading up to the start of the year, I practice a lot more. I didn’t play as much (in the lead up) because I felt like I needed to just kind of get my work done versus playing. So it’s definitely a balance, but, you know, I’ll play or practice for probably 4 or 5 hours a day, come home, relax, play video games, hang out with my wife, walk the dog some more. Then I’ll cold plunge kind of right before I fall asleep.

Akshay Bhatia on Training with the Meta x Oakley Glasses

PGA Tour star Akshay Bhatia wearing Oakley x Meta smart glasses

How Moving to the East Coast Helped Prepare Him for the PGA Tour

Cass Anderson:  Growing up in California with tons of topography, palm trees, and mostly Bermuda grass, what was it then like moving to North Carolina where you started to get really serious about golf as a potential career? And how did those years in North Carolina help shape your golf game in any ways?

Akshay Bhatia: Yeah, I mean, I didn’t grow up with a lot. The golf course that I grew up on was not, you know, the greatest, and was always busy.  So once we moved to North Carolina, I just had more opportunity to practice and play.

There’s a golf course like 5 minutes from my house. So I would go before school and then I’d go again after school. Then just the competition overall in North Carolina was a little better.  There are a lot of really good players that have came out in North Carolina and obviously gone to school there and are either on the PGA Tour or different tours. So it definitely helps being on the east coast.

Now that I think of it, because we play the majority of our schedule over here (on the East Coast).  We’re pretty much playing the same grass every week on that on that side of the world. And then the 4 or 5 times we have tournaments on the West Coast it’s pretty easy to get acclimated.

On Adjusting To TOUR Life

Cass Anderson: At this point, you’re a pretty prominent figure on the TOUR, you’re very well known. And I think that people often forget that you are still pretty young because you’ve become a household name in golf pretty quickly. Is it strange now being peers with these people you all just mentioned watching on TV growing up?

Akshay Bhatia: It’s definitely interesting… It’s very interesting to look at because obviously there’s a lot more younger guys now, but a lot of my friends that are on the PGA Tour now, they all went to college together. They all play practice rounds together. You know. So they’re still pretty well bonded.  I’ve separated myself a little bit from that just because I did turn pro so young.

But it is funny because there are plenty of times where I played like the Junior President’s Cup, the Junior Ryder Cup. And I remember the Junior Presidents Cup, I was walking a practice run with Ricky Fowler and Justin Thomas, who both live like less than 5 minutes from my house now, and Ricky and I are really good friends now.  But I always remember, you know, walking with them when I was 15 and 16 and now I play almost every day at home with Ricky. I see Justin all the time.

My caddie, we grew up in the same town, in California. I remember watching him, they were playing a practice round at the President’s Cup as well, and I just remember, like, hanging out with, with them and knowing who Joe (my caddie) was at the time, and now he’s my caddie.

It’s a really weird thing for me to process sometimes because, again, I don’t realize how young I am, compared to everyone. And I’ve obviously accomplished a lot so far, kind of. But it has.. I put high expectations on myself because I feel like I should be doing what everyone else is doing, but again, they have 4 or 5 years on me, and so it’s hard to kind of realize that sometimes.

Is Golf Still Fun For Akshay Bhatia?

Cass Anderson: As a few follow-up questions to that. I know that ‘a job is a job is a job,’ but is golf still fun for you on a week-to-week basis? And the other question is, you mentioned a rough stretch of play. On a micro and macro level, how do you mentally move on after hitting a bad shot and how do you move on from a rough stretch of golf and find form again?

Akshay Bhatia: So the first part.. it’s definitely hard to be happy all the time but there’s always positives you can take from each week and it’s just about getting out of your own head and separating the results from certain things… Because each week we can learn something about ourselves, whether it was a thought on a good shot, a thought on a bad shot. ‘Did I feel comfortable on this? Did I figure something out?’ There’s always stuff to learn each day, and the biggest thing for me is I try and stay really structured with my practice and my timing and everything just because I want to try and feel as similar as I can each day and control the things I can control.

So my practice schedule is very to the minute, very similar every day…  To get over certain things, it’s hard in the moments. This game can really beat you down.

And you know, I have great people around me to remind me how awesome it is what I get to do for a living, how I get to live my life, where I get to travel… There’s so many things that, again, I get caught off guard because I’ve been a professional golfer for 6 years, but I’m literally living my dream. You know, when I was 8… 10 years old… I’m doing what I was wanting to do my whole life.  Just reflecting on that, trying to get back into that.

No one said it’s gonna be like this easy coasting. Like you are gonna have your TOUR card and you’re gonna win all these tournaments for the rest of your life.

But that’s the fun part about golf is the satisfaction of competing and getting out of those ruts and playing well. And that was like the biggest thing I took out of this year, or this last year in ’25 was that I didn’t have my best stuff at all.

Yet the most satisfying thing was getting to the TOUR Championship, the top 30 guys of the PGA Tour make it, and being one of those 30… Being the last 30 and then having a great finish to end the year… It’s just something so satisfying that, when you have those hard times and then you finish the year and it’s like ‘man, I was still able to kind of dig it out of my stomach and do it.’  It’s the most rewarding thing about this sport.

How He Thrives Under Pressure

Cass Anderson: You mentioned the thrill of the competition… I was checking last year, so between the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass and 16th hole of the Waste Management, you were bogey-free and 3-under last year. The two holes that everyone considers to be kind of the most intimidating, loudest, raucous holes in golf. Is there anything about that atmosphere that helps you lock in?

Akshay Bhatia:  Yeah, you know, my caddie Joe and I were talking about this yesterday. I feel like when I do get in contention or have high pressure situations, I feel like that’s where I fought my best. Versus when I’m playing just okay to not great, and trying to gain that momentum.

It’s like, you already feel you have the momentum when you go into those holes because when you’re playing in front of a big crowd like that and you know how important the shots are I think your brain or your body takes over. There’s just more focus and you’re more in tune with everything. You feel everything more.  And my wife, we had a conversation about anxiety yesterday or two days ago, and that anxiety of like, not messing up, can turn into energy. It can turn into readiness.

And that is kind of what I’m trying to change my mindset to when it comes to that because, again, your body’s just reacting to such a big moment. We’ve hit so many golf shots. We’ve hit so many of this, you know, 9 irons and pitching wedges. So it’s not much different other than you’re just more excited and more ready.

And so I just thrive more in those situations and that’s why I love to compete because that’s the feeling I chase constantly is to getting to contention or to have moments where I have to pull off a certain shot.

 Cass Anderson: Earlier you mentioned eating and nutrition.  Are you tracking calories and macros on a day-to-day basis? Are you trying to hit any specific macros because you’re on your feet more than 99% of the humans alive?

Akshay Bhatia:  Yeah, it’s definitely a thing that we’ve taken more serious in the last year or so, my trainers and I. I have a specific snack bag, we call it. It has certain things, certain amount of calories, what holes I’m eating.

So it’s every 3 holes… I have a protein shake on the golf course which can get really annoying after a while. And then a sandwich. I’m just trying to maintain the energy because at the end of the year, we all lose 4-5 pounds.

So it’s just so important to fuel because that’s, you know, some trouble that people can have when competing is when you’re nervous or excited, it gets harder and harder to eat. But then it’s also something that can take your mind off things. It’s kind of a task you can add to your to yourself to where you can distract yourself from certain moments.

Mental vs Physical

Cass Anderson: If you had to assign percentages, how much would you say golf ‘mental’ versus ‘physical?’

Akshay Bhatia: I would say it’s probably 75% mental, and then the rest, physical. I think we all have physical talent. Most of us. Some more than others. But I think what shows in the greatest golfers of all time is how mentally, you can just tell how much sharper they are in certain moments, in certain environments.

When things aren’t going well, whether it is golf… Football… Momentum is such a big thing. And so that’s where your brain kind of can take over.

And it’s funny how it works when you’re not playing well. Then it seems like putts don’t go in and then you give the power of ‘oh, putts are just not going to go in’ because that’s just how golf works. But then you see one punt go in and then all of a sudden it can change so fast. This little boost of confidence that you have going into the next shot.

And so some of these guys that are top players in the world for a long time, what you see is how they are mentally strong in certain situations.

Akshay on Superstitions And Maintaining Consistency on the Range

Cass Anderson: Speaking of momentum swings,  I feel like in golf there are all these minor superstitions that present themselves. Guys have to have same ball marker, same glove, stuff like that.  Do you have any of those superstitions that can throw you off or not?

Akshay Bhatia: Yeah, I typically use the same ball marker every time. Then typically with my golf ball, I go like No. 1 and No. 3 on the 1st day, No. 2 and No. 4 the 2nd day, No. 1 and No. 3 on the 3rd day, and No. 2 and No. 4 the final day.  So I go odds evens.

I hit the same clubs on the range. I hit the same amount of putts when I practice on the putting green. The same amount of wedges on the range. The same amount of drivers.

I’m probably different than most guys, very structured in that department. Some guys can show up an hour before, hit a couple balls and be fine. I try and be as perfect as I can.

Cass Anderson: Within like the golf media/broadcasting world, there is always a lot of talk about Strokes Gained and advanced analytics. For you, being on the actual other side of that where everything you do is being measured, when you’re with your team, are you are you looking at those analytics? Are you more looking at like the end result?  A bit of both?

Akshay Bhatia: I mean, we’ll definitely look at like where I need to improve. I also take certain things with a grain of salt because Strokes Gained is amazing for a lot of things, certain shots, but I think there’s certain things that they can’t really tell. Like what the lie was like or where the pin was… How much slope there was.

And so, especially with shots that you’re like ‘oh, I hit a good shot there, but it said I lost half a stroke.’ Then you take it a little bit with a grain of salt.  But there are always great things to look at when it comes to improving and some things are really obvious. Some things may stick out and be like ‘wow, I didn’t realize I did this better last year than this year.’

That’s all for now!

For those that want to see Akshay Bhatia’s Super Bowl came for the Meta x Oakley smart glasses’ new ‘Athletic Intelligence,’ it just went live on YouTube. It will air in the first quarter of the Super Bowl this Sunday, February 8th, and highlight how athletes like Akshay and Sunny Choi are able to use this futuristic technology to reach peak performance:

To learn more about the Oakley x Meta smart glasses, the Vanguard and HSTN models, and the new ‘Athletic Intelligence,’ you can head over to Meta’s website here.

PGA Tour Star Akshay Bhatia Shares His Golf Superstitions, How He Thrives Under Pressure, And His First Super Bowl Commercial: INTERVIEW