BLAINE, Minn. – When describing his 2025 season, Akshay Bhatia hasn’t shied away from calling it what it is: demoralizing.

Success in golf came quickly for Bhatia. Too quickly, perhaps. The teenage prodigy turned professional in 2019 and seemed to glide through the game’s hierarchy with unbroken momentum. The past two years on TOUR felt like an effortless continuation of that rapid rise: two victories, starts in all four majors, and a coveted place inside the world’s top 50. But inevitability has a way of catching up. In a sport that had always seemed to give, Bhatia finally felt it take.

“This is the first year of my life where I’ve felt like I’m on a decline,” Bhatia admitted candidly after his third round at the 3M Open. “Every year before this felt like it was building upward. This one … it’s just been the toughest.”

This season hasn't been a collapse so much as a slow, disorienting unraveling. He battled swing struggles that chipped away at his confidence, had disappointing performances at majors and carried the suffocating, self-imposed weight of chasing a Ryder Cup dream that began to feel more like a burden than a goal.

"I definitely feel like it's been a demoralizing season for most of the year. Obviously PLAYERS was my best finish, and felt like I had a really good chance to win there," he said. "After that it's just been a decline. Struggled with my driver for a little bit, didn't play great in the majors, just too much pressure on myself trying to make Ryder Cup, trying to win, trying to contend in majors."

The irony of success is that it doesn’t merely breed celebration – it breeds expectation. It creates its own gravity, pulling even the brightest moments back to earth. What was once a summit quietly becomes the baseline. What once felt extraordinary is recast as ordinary – expected, even. For Bhatia, that spiral was demoralizing not simply because of the weight others placed on him, but because of the even heavier weight he placed on himself.

But somewhere along the difficult stretch, something shifted. Somewhere in the frustration, the endless self-scrutiny and the fatigue of unmet expectations, he simply ... stopped.

He stopped chasing the invisible markers that once dictated his worth and let go of his tight grip on the idea of what his season should be. And in that surrender came an acceptance that had once felt unthinkable: that he might not make the top 50, he might not play his way onto the Ryder Cup team, and he might fall short of the impossible standard he’d set for himself.

“I’ve compartmentalized at this point,” Bhatia said. “If I don’t make top 50, it’s okay. At least I have my job next year. I’ve just … accepted it.”

And in that acceptance, something unlocked. Bhatia carded rounds of 66-66-63 at TPC Twin Cities to hold the 54-hole lead at the 3M Open alongside Thorbjørn Olesen, his first 54-hole lead of the season and the third of his career.

He play this week hasn't been flawless – he admits he didn’t drive the ball particularly well Saturday – but he chipped in twice, he holed putts that lipped in instead of out and managed his misses. Now he heads into Sunday with a chance to turn a season of frustration into one of quiet redemption.

A chance – that’s all it is. Not a grand reset or a cure-all for a difficult season, but proof that pressure doesn’t have to define him. What once felt like crumbling under the weight of expectation now feels like learning how to stand without it.