Akshay Bhatia addressed the talk around his putting after his win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, where some fans questioned whether his technique was within the rules.
The 24-year-old uses a long putter, specifically a 50-inch Odyssey Jailbird 380 broomstick and has been accused of anchoring it against his chest. That would be illegal but Bhatia says that is not what he is doing.
Thanks for the submission!
Speaking on the Foreplay Podcast, Akshay Bhatia responded to the claims and made it clear he is not too concerned about the noise.
“I’d honestly just take my shirt off and show everyone, this is where I’m at’. Because it’s three to four inches from my chest. Like, I’m not built like Adam Scott. I’m not built like Lucas Glover. And so, yeah, it looks like it touches my shirt.”
“So, yeah, people can say what they want to say. If I wasn’t playing well, no one would say anything. So if they want me to go shorter, then I’ll just bend down more. So it doesn’t matter to me, you know?”
Akshay Bhatia also compared the criticism to other putting styles saying just because something looks different does not make it wrong.
“It’s like just a different version, and I think Jordan (Spieth) talked about it last week. Like, it’s still a skill that you have to learn with the broom. And you still have to be a great green reader. Like, I could anchor it and pull every putt and miss everything, but it’s like, I’m still a great green reader, and I’m, you know, I have to have some idea of speed.”
The questions around his putting have been there since he made the switch in September 2023. At that time, Akshay Bhatia was struggling on the greens and ranked 183rd in Strokes Gained: Putting. Since then, things have changed. He moved up to 33rd in 2024 and finished 35th in 2025, which shows how much his putting has improved.
The debate, though, is mostly about how it looks. On camera, it can seem like the putter is touching his chest, which is why people keep bringing it up. For Akshay Bhatia, nothing has changed. He believes he is within the rules and is not paying much attention to the criticism.
Why Akshay Bhatia’s putting has not broken any rules
The discussion around Akshay Bhatia’s putting has largely come down to how the rules on anchoring are applied, and there is no indication that he has crossed that line.
Anchoring has been banned since 2016, when the USGA introduced Rule 14-1b. The rule makes it clear that a player cannot hold the club, or a gripping hand, against the body, nor can they use the body as a fixed point to steady the stroke.
It defines two key points. One is direct contact, where the club or hand is intentionally held against the body. The other is creating an anchor point, where a forearm is braced against the body to stabilise the motion. Both are not allowed under the rules.
The conversation around Bhatia picked up after his performance at Bay Hill, where he gained 10.6 strokes on the field with his putting. That was three strokes better than Billy Horschel and well ahead of Daniel Berger, whom he beat in a playoff.
His numbers this season also support that. He currently ranks 12th in Strokes Gained: Putting, which points more towards improvement than anything else.
The long putter itself is not the issue. Variations like the belly putter have been around for decades and were cleared for use on tour as far back as the 1960s. Several top players, including Johnny Miller, Paul Azinger and Vijay Singh, used similar setups.
The debate only picked up in the 2000s, when players began anchoring the club against their bodies more often. That period included a run where multiple majors were won using that method, which eventually led to the rule change.
The ban formally came into effect in 2016 after being proposed in 2012, and since then, the focus has been on how the stroke is executed rather than the type of putter being used.
Edited by Sonali Verma