By Rahul Banerji
On Thursday evening home time, Anirban Lahiri sets out to revive his faltering fortunes on the PGA Tour at the Memorial Tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus at the Muirfield Village Golf Course near Columbus, Ohio.
Lahiri will play alongside Australia’s Danny Lee and J.J. Spaum of the USA, teeing off around 6.10 pm IST.
Joining him in the Memorial field, but starting much later in the day will be Shubhankar Sharma who has been paired alongside Ryan Fox of Australia and US amateur Will Grimmer, this flight teeing off about 10.30 pm India time.
Lahiri is currently 166th in the FedEx Cup standings on 129 points, 1,981 points behind table-topper Matt Kuchar (2,110) and well out of pretty much everything.
In 16 Tour starts so far, Anirban has one top-10 finish and stands well outside the Wydham rewards programme, the BMW Championship race (top 70), and the Northern Trust entry list (top 125). He needs some strong performances in the last quarter of the season to even stay in contention now.
Some consolation
If it’s any consolation, Internationals captain for the upcoming Presidents Cup in Melbourne in December this year, Ernie Els, is 169th on 120 points from 13 his Tour starts.
Pre-tournament, Kuchar, the resurgent Jordan Speith, Aussies Jason Day and Adam Scott, Irishman Rory McIlroy and the ever-present Patrickk Cantlay are favoured at the Memorial that was founded by Jack Nicklaus and first hosted in 1976.
Speith has had a 22-month long absence from the winner’s circle, but tournament host Nicklaus feels he is on the way back after back to back top-1o finishes at the PGA and last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge.
“You feel bad for the guy. I felt bad for him for some of his play but I think his work ethic and desire to win and play is there and when you have that … well he will do fine,” Nicklaus was quoted as saying on the PGA Tour website.
“Jordan is trying to make some adjustments in his swing. He’s been trying this for about a year. He is paying the pains of it a little bit but he will be better off in the end for it.”
Tiger on the prowl
Five-time winner Tiger Woods is in the field as a warm-up for the US Open that follows in two weeks time at Pebble Beach, and has always been a threat in Ohio, The field however, will be minus PGA Championship winner Brooka Koepka and runner-up Dustin Johnson.
“I’ve always liked this golf course,” Tiger said. “I played here in the Amateur, and I absolutely loved it then and loved it as a pro, because you have to play to certain spots and make your way around the course. We all know that Jack built an incredible golf course.”
Wrote Dave Shedloski on the Tour site, “Not only is Muirfield Village the site this week of the 44th playing of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, it also has been the venue for some of golf’s most popular and prestigious events.
“It is the only golf course in the world to host the Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup and Presidents Cup. It also was the site of the 1992 US Amateur.”
Also read: Lahiri’s putter goes cold again on day 3 at Fort Worth
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