Akshay Bhatia bounced back from an unusual penalty with a strong finish to his first round at the 2026 Hero Indian Open.
The American played the wrong ball for his second shot on the 15th hole, the resulting two-stroke penalty contributing to a triple-bogey eight and an outward nine of 44 at the difficult DLF G&CC.
He dug deep to follow that with a bogey-free inward nine of 33 and though his 77 left him well off the pace in New Delhi, his spirits remained high.
"Glad I didn't shoot 80!" the 2023 Barracuda Championship winner laughed. "Yeah, tough day - hit the wrong ball, which was very unfortunate, and just did not play good on the first nine.
"Shooting three under on my back side was great and look, this golf course is hard so if I can just try and get it back to even par, I think it'll be a nice comeback for me. I'll never give up and that's kind of the goal."
That unfortunate eight - which saw Bhatia hit the incorrect stray ball and then make a six on his own ball once he realised, which became an eight with the penalty - was one of several blows before the turn for Bhatia, who double-bogeyed the tenth after going out of bounds. He birdied the next but two bogeys, that triple and another double left him eight over as he turned to the front nine.
Birdies at the third, fifth and eighth clawed back a significant proportion of the damage and he said: “It's a tough golf course. I mean, I hit it OB on the first hole so it's just, like, you can hit shots that are five, 10 yards off your line and just be really in a tough position.
“But all in all, I'm just going to try and rest and just try and kind of continue the momentum I had on the back nine today.”
Bhatia, whose grandparents are Indian, thanked this week's sponsor Hero MotorCorp and its chairman Dr Pawan Munjal for their support in his career.
“Yeah, it's such a blessing. It wouldn't be possible without him, so I'm just very happy to be an ambassador for him and his company," he said.
“It's been a really fun treat so far so yeah, I'm just so blessed to be here and I look forward to spending a couple more days here for sure.”
