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Lahiri back in action after his forced 5 months break, joins Atwal at Wyndham!

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Posted by Admin 15 Aug 2020

Written by: Betsy Babu

 

Anirban Lahiri will tee up in his first PGA TOUR tournament in five months at the Wyndham Championship ending his five-month long coronavirus-forced break which kept him in his home country for an unplanned and extended period of time. “It’s been a long, long time,” said Lahiri. “I am hungry and all ready to go. I came to India for the Indian Open and then had to stay back as the Covid outbreak started spreading all over.”  In March, he flew home to his native India to feature in his national Open, but the sporting world came to a grinding halt when the COVID-19 pandemic led to countries shutting borders and grounding international travel.

 

“I’m feeling excited. It’s not something I’ve felt like in a long time. It’s like going back to school after a summer vacation. It’s a good thing” he added. The Wyndham Championship is the final event of the Regular Season. The top 125 players from the FedExCup points list will qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs, comprising of THE NORTHERN TRUST, BMW Championship and TOUR Championship. The FedExCup winner will win US$15 million, the largest winner’s prize in golf.

 

When the PGA TOUR resumed competition in mid-June after a three-month suspension, Lahiri was forced to sit out as he could not return to the United States. The upside though of being home gave him the opportunity to reset and rebuild his game from scratch with long-time coach Vijay Divecha.

 

 “Mentally, I decided that I was going to focus on the next 2020-21 season, instead of thinking about the ongoing one. I took it as an opportunity to work on my game and rebuild it,” he said. “After all, how many times does anyone get a chance to work on the game and assess it with one’s coach and stay away from tournaments without needing to worry about the Tour card?”

 

“This was one such chance,” added Lahiri, as the PGA Tour decided that all players would keep the status they had for the 2020 season. “I got to spend six weeks with Vijay which I haven’t done in like five or six years. It’s a big reset and I was able to work continuously with him,” said Lahiri, who has endured a lean spell of form where his last top-10 was at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in November 2018.

 

“We basically disassembled the engine and put everything back together. In the last few years, I’ve only had the opportunity to see Vijay for short periods of time and those were often fixes. This time, we have rebuilt from scratch and started with the assumption you don’t know how to play golf and have never held a club. We started with the grip, posture, the basics and fundamentals, and worked our way up. We deleted the good and the bad stuff, and it’s a clean slate. We’ve actually done this a few times previously to give ourselves a reset.”

 

This week, he will put his game to a test with a third visit to Sedgefield Country Club, a Donald Ross design which was coincidentally the scene where countryman Arjun Atwal secured an historic victory at the 2010 Wyndham Championship, making him the first Indian winner on TOUR. “I like it as it’s an old school track, tree-lined and you have to shape shots,” said Lahiri, who played all four rounds in 2017 and 2019. “There’s a good mix of lengthy holes and shortish holes. If you get hot, you can make lots of birdies and do a lot of damage.”

 

Lahiri remains in search of his maiden PGA TOUR title, having finished inside the top 3 on two occasions at the 2016 CIMB Classic and 2017 the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide.

 

“I feel good about my game in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I feel good about playing golf again. If you don’t play well for an extended period, it can work against you,” Lahiri said. “If you put in the good work, which I believe I have, you restart by building the confidence up again and I’m excited about competing.”

 

“I haven’t watched much of the golf since the restart which is a good thing as I would have missed it even more. But now that I’m back in America, I’m ready to go. I’m hungry. I love playing golf and I love competing. I’m ready to get out there and pushing myself,” he added.

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