{"id":382706,"date":"2024-04-08T02:25:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T02:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=382706"},"modified":"2024-04-08T04:03:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T04:03:00","slug":"star-dislocates-shoulder-before-winning-2-5m-playoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=382706","title":{"rendered":"Star dislocates shoulder before winning $2.5m playoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Akshay Bhatia nearly celebrated too soon, hurting his left shoulder while pumping his arms on a 12-foot birdie to force a playoff at the Texas Open on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Bhatia reportedly dislocated his shoulder but popped it back in, and then had to get his physio to strap it while walking up the fairway of the playoff hole.<\/p>\n

He recovered to make birdie on the first extra hole and win the Texas Open over hard-luck Denny McCarthy to earn more than $2.5 million in prize money – and a trip to The Masters<\/a> later this week.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2024 US Masters golf live and free on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a> from April 12-15.\ufeff<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It was a wild finish on so many levels.<\/p>\n

McCarthy was six shots behind going to the back nine at the TPC San Antonio when he birdied eight of the nine holes \u2014 including the last seven \u2014 making a 12-foot birdie for a 9-under 63. Bhatia had to make his birdie putt from the same range to have a chance.<\/p>\n

\"Akshay<\/p>\n

He made it for a 67, raising his arms to shake them in his clutch moment. And that's when he felt his shoulder \u2014 which he says has given him trouble before \u2014 pop out of its socket.<\/p>\n

Bhatia hit his tee shot and laid up with a 5-iron on the par-5 18th in the playoff.<\/p>\n

McCarthy, playing in his 174th PGA Tour event without winning, was first to play and chunked a wedge so badly that he immediately hung his head. The ball came up some 20 yards short into the middle of a creek.<\/p>\n

And then Bhatia called for treatment, jogging off the course briefly to get his shoulder taped. He returned and hit wedge to six feet. Needing three putts to win, he holed it to win for the second time on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, what a crazy, crazy day,\u201d Bhatia said.<\/p>\n

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The 22-year-old Bhatia, who turned pro five years ago, won at the Barracuda Championship last year. It was held opposite the British Open, so it did not get him into the Masters.<\/p>\n

This one did, his first trip to Augusta National. And it came 10 years after Bhatia played in the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals at the home of the Masters. Now he gets to play on more than just the 18th green, and he fulfilled his mother's wish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is awesome,\u201d he said. \u201cIt's hard to win out there as it showed today. My mum's birthday was April 1 and her wish was to go to the Masters.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarthy had already earned his spot from finishing in the top 50 in the world last year, but all that mattered in this moment was that elusive PGA Tour trophy. He lost in a playoff last year at the Memorial to Viktor Hovland.<\/p>\n

Bhatia will be the first Drive, Chip and Putt finalist to play in the Masters. The competition has been one of several innovations from Augusta National. It also started the Asia-Pacific Amateur, where a young champion Hideki Matsuyama went on to capture a green jacket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got the goal I had in mind,\u201d Bhatia said.<\/p>\n

That includes a trip to Augusta National. His also qualifies for the US Open with his second PGA Tour victory, and he moves to No.34 in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Akshay Bhatia nearly celebrated too soon, hurting his left shoulder while pumping his arms on a 12-foot birdie to force a playoff at the Texas […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":382708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=382706"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382709,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382706\/revisions\/382709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/382708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=382706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=382706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=382706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}