By Rahul Banerji
Anirban Lahiri opens his 2018-19 PGA Tour campaign with a debut appearance at the Safeway Open in California this week, determined to make up for a disappointing last season.
The 31-year-old finished 99th in the FedExCup points standings following four top-10s earlier. He was 51st in the 2016-17 PGA Tour season.
“It was a disappointing year,” said Lahiri. “I think I played decent in the summer, had top-10s at the Travelers and Akron but in the last few events, I had three missed cuts and one average finish.
“At the end of the season, you want to play your best golf but I played my worst golf.
“The opposite happened last year when I got to Chicago (BMW Championship) and finished 51st on the FedExCup standings.
“The goal was also to win last season but I didn’t got myself into contention as consistently as I would have liked.”
Blessing in disguise
The break proved to be a blessing in disguise as Lahiri’s coach Vijay Divecha flew to Florida recently to spend time working out the kinks in his game.
Lahiri will tee up at Silverado Resort and Spa North starting on Thursday.
“I enjoyed my forced time off. I’ve been able to work on my fitness and with Vijay,” said Lahiri, a two-time Presidents Cup International team member.
The former Asian Tour no. 1 said his short game let him down.
Poor finishing
“The only difference between the times I played well and didn’t play well was my short game and putting. Weeks I got in the mix was when I didn’t drop a lot of shots and kept my game really tight.
“In the last few months, starting with the PGA Championship, I had difficulty adjusting to the greens and different surfaces and it threw my confidence off and I didn’t recover from that week.
“There were too many rounds where I lost momentum. I would get to one or two-under after five or six holes but didn’t have stretches where those two-under became five-under.
“I didn’t build on those good starts.
“I also endured lapses in concentration, like when I would hit 15 greens in regulation and then make three bogeys.
“The tightness wasn’t there and I was leaking too many shots. That’s what I’m focusing on. The rest of the work continues … trying to get stronger and faster.”
Lahiri, who will represent India in the ISPS Handa Melbourne World Cup of Golf with Shubhankar Sharma in Australia next month, also revealed he had gone vegetarian in the interim.
“It was something that came naturally and I felt like I wanted to do it. I just wanted to try to clean up, feel better, feel the energy levels go up.
“It’s good for me at the moment. It also relates to my state of mind,” he said.
Also read: Double delight for Sharma with Arjuna, and Lahiri as WCG partner
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