Ponte Vedra Beach (Florida): Chasing his first win on the PGA Tour, India’s Anirban Lahiri will take a one shot lead into the final day of the of THE PLAYERS Championships after completing the third round with a 5-under 67 Monday morning. Anirban Lahiri completed his remaining seven holes in even par after trading a bogey on 15 and a birdie on 16 and leads on 9-under 207 from Sebastian Munoz (65), Doug Ghim (68), Paul Casey (69) and Sam Burns (71) in the TOUR’s flagship USD 20 million tournament.
It will be only the second time in Lahiri’s career that the Indian will hold the 54-hole lead as he seeks to join countryman Arjun Atwal (2010 Wyndham Championship) as the only Indian to win on the PGA TOUR. He is also bidding to become the third Asian to win THE PLAYERS after Korea’s KJ Choi (2011) and Si Woo Kim (2017).
“There’s not much to get too far ahead of yourself. I’m just trying to stay in the moment and just do what I need to do next. I think the short turnaround time actually helps because you don’t really have time to do anything else,” Lahiri said after completing the course.
“You’re just on a schedule and you’re trying to make sure that you are resting and prepping and feeling and doing all the things that you need to do. It’s been pretty good actually,” said Lahiri, who will head out with Ghim and Munoz in the last group at 1.01pm local time.
Lahiri, whose best finish on TOUR was a T2 at the 2017 Memorial Tournament, had led into the final round at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia in 2016 before finishing tied third.
The welcome change in form has put Lahiri in a good place as he seeks his career breakthrough despite struggling all season without a single top-10 finish.
And it looks like all it has taken for the change in fortunes was adding some 3.5 grams of weight to his irons and making a slight adjustment to have a more open stance at address.
“I love golf, and when you know you can play well and you don’t, you’re not happy. Then when you start playing well again and you start hitting it the way you want to hit it again, you are happy. I mean, it’s pretty simple. I’m just in that place right now where I’m just hitting it nice, I’m seeing it nice, I’m feeling it nice, and that just makes me happy,” Lahiri informed.