Anirban

Lahiri

After kicking off with 68-68-70, the 34-year-old began T3, four adrift of overnight leader Keegan Bradley (72), and was in search of his first PGA TOUR victory in 158 events. In the end, it wasn’t to be, however, but hung in there pretty well at 1-under thru 14 holes (3 birdies, 2 bogeys) before squaring back-to-backs at 15 and 16 to conclude his scoring. The South Florida resident, who is not in the published field at this coming week’s AT&T Byron Nelson, does bag his fourth top 25 of the season in 17 events, two straight (T15, Mexico Open) and four in his last five, and his second top 10, joining a career-TOUR-best solo 2nd at THE PLAYERS four starts ago as the 54-hole leader by one. He ended the week with 15 birdies against 10 bogeys and one double, and ranked 12th SG: Tee-to-Green (7.249), including a 1.300 TTG in R4, and 17th SG: Putting (2.790), lowlighted by a -1.085 SGP on Sunday.

The 34-year-old checked in off three top-15 finishes in his last four events, kicking off the run with an impressive solo 2nd at THE PLAYERS after being the 54-hole leader by one (67-73-67-69). That matches his best on the PGA TOUR in 157 events with a back-door T2 at the 2017 Memorial (T27 thru 54 holes), and will be in the penultimate twosome tomorrow with past champ James Hahn, chasing leader and fellow South Florida resident Keegan Bradley. Lahiri, who’s a two-time winner on the European Tour in 76 events, most recently the 2015 Hero Indian Open, has recorded rounds of 68-68-70, and ranks 8th SG: Tee-to-Green (5.962) and 10th in SG: Putting (3.863), highlighted by a 3.235 SGP in R3. Today, the Bangalore, India, native was 2-under thru 14 (3 birdies, 1 bogey) before stalling out to a bogey-par-par-bogey finish, but still gained 3.662 strokes against the field average in R3 on a dreary, raining and chilly day at TPC Potomac. See link below to post-round comments.

Lahiri led off his day with a steady stream of approach shots that left him just outside of striking distance. He had scoring chances from 15-to-20 feet on five of the opening nine holes. After the turn, he improved just enough with three looks from inside of 12 feet on his next six holes, converting two of those into birdies. Finally, he ended his round with a 24'4" birdie bomb at the 18th. Lahiri grew up on paspalum turf so that comfort factor may be helping him this week at Vidanta Vallarta. He also arrived with top 15s in two of his last three starts, so recent form was on his side, as well. Gamers should continue to ride the hot hand.

Lahiri showed no signs of form before his runner-up finish at THE PLAYERS, which was his most recent start entering the week. The 34-year-old from India kept that momentum rolling despite the two-week break. Lahiri kept it steady from tee-to-green today with 11-of-14 fairways hit and 15 GIR. Both rank top 15 in the field at the moment. That provided him a steady stream of scoring chances and the putts started to fall on his way into the clubhouse, circling birdie on four of his final four holes today. That included a 30'4" walkoff birdie bomb at the par-4 ninth. He has now been T11 or better after five straight rounds played and is starting to get comfortable playing on page one of the leaderboard again. His previous history at the Valero showed a 3-for-3 record including a solo fifth last year.

The South Florida resident, a pre-tourney 500/1 outright, led by one over four players to begin the finale, two clear of Smith. He played well enough to win, certainly didn’t squander the opportunity for his first PGA TOUR victory in 154 events, but Smith putted lights out en route to a 10-birdie 66 out of the penultimate threesome. The runner-up, his second and first the 2017 Memorial 103 starts ago, is good for a $2.18 million payday, and got there handing in rounds of 67-73-67-69. The Bangalore, India, native, drops to 0-for-2 as a 54-hole leader/co-leader, but improves to 2-for-6 in the event (T74/MDF, 2019), and claims his 14th career top 10, first since a back-door T3 at last season’s opposite-field Barbasol 15 starts ago. For the festivities, he tallied three eagles, T1 in that stat, and 15 birdies versus seven bogeys and a double, and ranked 12th SG: Tee-to-Green (7.734) and 10th SG: Putting (5.653). On Monday, the 34-year-old landed 10 (of 14) fairways and 11 greens in regulation, losing 1.395 strokes on approach but gaining 0.362 off-the-tee, 1.483 around and 2.122 on-the-green. His lone blemish was double bogey-5 at hole 8 (unplayable off-the-tee), outpaced by three birdies at 4, 9 and 17 (from 13'5"), and an eagle-3 at 11 from 14'5". See link below top post-round comments.

Lahiri did most of the heavy lifting before the turn, racking up five birdies before trading two birdies with two bogeys on the homeward nine. “I got off to a really good start yesterday, kept the momentum going, and came back out this morning. I was to be honest not my sharpest, and hitting that fat shot on 12 to start the day kind of was a slap in my face, woke me up. Yeah, I think I’m happy with the way I finished and just looking forward to the rest of the day.” For the week, he ranks 16th in strokes gained off-the-tee, 7th on approach, and 14th in putting. This will be his second time posting a 54-hole lead or co-lead on the PGA TOUR (2016-17 CIMB Classic, finished T3). Lahiri arrived with a 1-for-5 record at THE PLAYERS and had missed the cut in three of his four lead-in events. He’s gone 15 straight worldwide events without finding anything better than a T40, so this week’s performance certainly came out of the blue.

The South Florida resident has yet to play all four rounds at THE PLAYERS in five previous visits, his best being a T74/MDF in 2019 (70-71-76). He mentioned in his pre-tourney presser on Tuesday that it’s “really important to see myself hit more quality shots in competition” and he accomplished that on Thursday, gaining 3.469 strokes approach in 15 greens in regulation. The highlights were a hole-out eagle-2 at 6 from 125 yards away and a birdie-2 at 8 from 20'7", while his lowlight was a 3-putt bogey at the par-3 17th from 51'3". With preferred lies in effect, the 34-year-old records his best lap at TPC Sawgrass in 12 rounds, previously 69, and is chasing his first top 10 on TOUR since a back-door T3 at last season’s opposite-field Barbasol 16 starts ago (68-67-68-65). See link below to post-round comments.

Yet to make the weekend at TPC Sawgrass, both course history and current form are not on Lahiri’s side. Well aware, the 34-year-old spoke eloquently when asked about the state of his game, saying, “The beauty about what we do, Laura, is that you’re one week away from being a PGA TOUR winner. You’re one week away from being at Augusta. You’re one week away from having a two, three-year exemption. You’re one week away from you having a different kind of conversation with me. So really the road map boils down to what can I do to play better? What can I do to change the kind of scores I’m shooting. It’s not like a systematic investment plan where I’m going to five points a week for the next 20 weeks. It’s not like that in golf. So, you just have to try to go back to the drawing board. You just have to try to clean up the areas that are kind of making the scorecards dirty, so to speak. And then you work your way back from there. I think the most important thing for me in terms of a road map is for me to build some confidence and momentum through the rest of the season. The one thing that’s really important is to see myself hit more quality shots in competition. You have to start somewhere. I think that’s more what your question is. For me, that’s my starting point because once I can start building confidence and momentum through tournament golf -- and you see it on the PGA TOUR, guys that miss four cuts, five cuts in a row and they’ll have that big win out of nowhere. So, the road map is really quite simple. You just have to keep working at the quality of your golf. You have to keep working to improve your confidence. To trend in the right direction and to kind of reverse the flow of things and then to let things happen. It’s very difficult in our game to let things happen, and that’s one of the things I’m guilty of because, when you’re not playing well, you’re trying to force a good result or trying to force a good shot. You sometimes start pushing against a wall, and you go backwards. So, yeah, I’m just trying to keep things simple and do all the things I just spoke to you about.” See link below for Lahiri’s full press conference transcript.

The 34-year-old, who opened with a seven-birdie three-bogey 67, began with nine pars today before waking up to five birdies at holes 1, 4-6 and 8. He striped 12 (of 14) fairways and translated that into 12 greens in regulation, posting 1.583 putts per GIR. This is the South Florida resident’s fourth appearance with three prior top 30s, including a pair of top 15s in 2018 (T14) and a T10 on last visit in 2019, where he was T3 at halftime (65-66-69-68). He owns three podiums among 13 career top 10s in 144 events with a best of T2 at the 2017 Memorial, where he was T40 thru 36 holes (74-70-69-65).