From 59th in 2024 to 103rd in 2025 and now 128th in 2026, Akshay Bhatia’s SG: Off-the-Tee numbers are declining every year. The story continues at the Charles Schwab Challenge 2026. Despite carding 8-under after two rounds, he has lost 0.724 strokes with the longest club in his bag. Fresh off another frustrating day of poor driving, the 24-year-old who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March opened up about a lingering issue he cannot fully explain.

“Once I get on the golf course, I’m just struggling with, I don’t know what it is, because I don’t feel like I’m scared of anything. But subconsciously something is going on, so again, I just got to keep doing my thing, and it will happen. It’s just going to take a lot of work,” the three-time PGA Tour winner said at the post-round press conference.

In Round 2, he hit barely six fairways. It’s wild considering Bhatia hit 300 drivers on the range. The struggle was evident on the moving day too. He reached only four fairways yesterday, losing 1.317 strokes off the tee. Compare that with other parts of his game, and the difference is jarring. Bhatia ranked 12th in SG: Putting and 15th in SG: Around the Green. Yet he made four bogeys and carded 1-over to drop six spots on the leaderboard. Interestingly enough, Bhatia hinted his haywire drives are actually a symbol of a bigger problem.

Bhatia was paired with Brandt Snedeker and Tony Finau for the first two rounds. Now Snedeker is the Presidents Cup captain, and Bhatia might have to rely on a captain’s pick to earn a spot at the biennial event. He is now 12th in the standings, well outside of top-six automatic qualifying spots. The 24-year-old revealed subconsciously he might have been trying too hard to impress his playing partner, Snedeker, which was backfiring. And even his caddie, Joe Greiner, agrees.

“Joe mentioned maybe I was thinking about it [Presidents Cup]. But he said, ‘Brandt’s not looking at how you’re playing golf right now; it’s more how you’re handling certain things.’ So I took that with me, and even subconsciously, maybe I am thinking about it,” Akshay Bhatia added, noting that it’s exactly what happened at the last Presidents Cup and the 2025 Ryder Cup as well.

In 2024, Bhatia was in a similar position. He had to rely on the captain’s pick, but he couldn’t manage a single top-ten finish between June and September. Quite naturally, Jim Furyk favored others over Bhatia. Ditto for the Ryder Cup 2025.

Despite starting the year well, his form worsened as the Ryder Cup got nearer. He missed the cut at the U.S. Open and scraped through a lone top-ten finish in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. That clearly wasn’t enough for Keegan Bradley to bring him to the U.S. squad. Bhatia believes thinking too much about these two events worked against him. But him trying too hard to don the Stars and Stripes is understandable, considering his history at the event.

Bhatia played the Junior Presidents Cup in 2017 when he was 15. He was undefeated (3-0-0) and helped Team USA to a 14-10 victory over the International Team. But since he turned professional in 2019, he has never had an opportunity to play the biennial event.

“You just keep learning about how you feel and what it means to you. And obviously to play in a team event—everyone really talks highly about it—and to be a part of those teams is what I want to do.” However, while this is an on-course problem, Akshay Bhatia takes it home and is significantly affected by it.

He was anxious about the 2026 campaign, too. So, his wife, Presleigh Schultz, told him that he is giving too much power to anxiety. Speaking on the Smylie Kaufman Show, he said that her advice was to either avoid the word “anxiety” or replace it with something else, and it worked, as he felt calm at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the WM Phoenix Open. Bhatia is also thankful to his experienced caddie Joe Greiner, who has been helping him with his mentality.

When he won his third PGA Tour title at Bay Hill, he revealed that Greiner had motivated him. Before he made the eagle on 16th in the final round to tie for the lead, his caddie told him, “Just hit one of the best 6-irons of your life right here.” He also said that throughout the week, Greiner reminded him that “you can play happy, you can play nervous, you can play upset, or angry.”

The aim should be to play regardless of one’s emotional state. But all of that advice might have fallen a little short because his subconscious mind was again causing trouble. In the competitive world of golf, Bhatia is not the only one facing these challenges.

Golfers who have faced mental struggles

One key example is Grayson Murray. The two-time PGA Tour winner had openly discussed depression, anxiety, and alcohol addiction. He was even sober for around 8 months and seemed to have been doing better. However, he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Challenge in 2024 and took his own life.

Will Wilcox has also suffered from similar struggles. The professional golfer was exposed to opioids at the age of 13 and started using them by 18. He was even arrested for it twice.

“I’d have 10,000 people screaming because I’d made a 40 ft putt and I’d earn $500,000—then I’d be in a heroin den two hours later with homeless drug addicts,” Wilcox said in an interview with The Times.

Matthew Wolff is another pro who brought mental health to the forefront during the 2021 US Open. Bubba Watson helped him understand the strain of professional golf and cope with it.

In fact, this was Akshay Bhatia after playing the 2021 U.S. Open: “I should enjoy it a lot more than I do. I just didn’t have fun today, which really sucks because a lot of golf is score-oriented, and when you’re not playing well, it feels like it sucks.”

Such stories show how deeply the pressures of professional golf can affect a player’s mental well-being, even at the highest level. Akshay Bhatia’s recent struggles off the tee reflect the same battle between confidence and subconscious pressure, as he continues to search for consistency.