DETROIT — A bizarre Sunday afternoon ended with Cameron Young leaving Detroit Golf Club with a broken driver, Akshay Bhatia missing a gut-wrenching 4-foot putt, multiple other players nearly winning, but ultimately losing, and a surprised Cam Davis celebrating a much-needed win while hitting practice shots on the third tee box.
With that, the Rocket Mortgage Classic has its first two-time winner.
Davis shot a final round 2-under 70 to finish the week in Detroit at 18-under, edging a carful of runner-ups finishing one shot back. Bhatia and Aaron Rai shot even-par 72s in the day’s final pairing, finishing 17-under-par, joined by Min Woo Lee and Davis Thompson.
Bhatia seemingly had the tournament locked up, until he didn’t.
Looking to become the third multi-time winner on the PGA Tour this season, the 22-year-old was tied for the lead heading into the par-5 17th hole. Having eagled the hole on Thursday and birdied it on Saturday, he appeared poised to capture his third career win on tour.
Instead, Bhatia found a greenside bunker on 17, leading himself a 9-foot birdie putt, and left with par. Then came the real pain. On 18, Bhatia left a potential winning 28-foot birdie putt 4 feet short. Set to send the day to a playoff with Davis, he then pushed the tying putt wide right.
“It sucks, no other way to put it,” Bhatia said.
Winning is hard.
The first miss inside 6 feet this week for Akshay Bhatia leads to bogey and a victory for Cam Davis. pic.twitter.com/MeifeElEsm
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 30, 2024
Sunday marked the second straight week Bhatia played in the final group and went home empty-handed. He watched last week’s closing duel between Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim as the third group member.
While the focus will be on missing the short putt on 18, the first putt might arguably be more disappointing. It left Bhatia in a vulnerable spot and caused his lone three-putt and only second bogey of the tournament.
“You’ve got so much slope there so you don’t want to run it five, six feet by,” Bhatia said. “Just a little bit of nerves, honestly. I’m human and yeah, the greens get slower throughout the day here.”
Having previously won in Detroit in 2021 by beating Joaquin Niemann and Troy Merritt in a playoff, Davis stayed warm by hitting a few balls on the third hole as the final group finished. He hugged his caddie, Andrew Tschudin, as a moan rose from 18 following Bhatia’s miss.
Davis, a 29-year-old from Australia, won with rounds of 68-66-66-70 and bolstered his International Team résumé for this year’s President Cup.
Davis credited recent time spent with a hypnotherapist as helping to find and sustain recent form. Having spent parts of the last three years inside the top 50 of the world rankings, he hadn’t posted a single top-10 finish since a T7 at the Australian PGA Championship in November 2023.
Sunday’s scoring average at Detroit Golf Club was two shots higher than on Saturday. A steady wind with gusts into the 20 gave the normally docile course some teeth, setting the average score at 71.9 for the day.
Perhaps no one was as frustrated with those conditions as much as Cameron Young. Looking for his first career PGA Tour win, he followed rounds of 67, 66 and 67 with a 1-over 73. He shot a 38 on the back nine, allowing his emotions to get the best of him after hitting a drive into the left rough on the 14th hole. Young pushed down on his driver on the tee box, bending and cracking the shaft. He was only one stroke back at the time.
Young finished the round hitting 3-wood off Detroit Golf Club’s remaining holes, including the par-5 17th. He declined to speak to media afterward, leaving with a T6 finish. He is not in the field at next week’s John Deere Classic.
(Photo of Cam Davis: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
