Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri leads THE PLAYERS Championship 2022 at the end of Sunday. He reached to the top of the leader board with five birdies in the opening nine holes of Round 3 and will have seven holes left to play on Monday. Lahiri, world rank 322, was 500/1 to win THE PLAYERS Championship title entering the tournament. Round 3 was suspended late on Sunday due to torrential rain followed by heavy winds on Saturday. The game will resume on Monday.

Anirban Lahiri

On Saturday, Lahiri shared tied 4 positions with Kramer Hickok (America), Joaquin Nieman (Chile), Keith Mitchell (America), and Daniel Berger (America). On Sunday, he rose to a tied 3 position. Before the game paused, Lahiri leads the THE PLAYERS Championship.

This is a big chance for Lahiri as he has never won a PGA Tour title. In five previous starts in this tournament, Lahiri missed the cut on four occasions and his best finish was being 74th in 2019.

 THE PLAYERS Championship currently offers the highest prize fund of any tournament in golf ($20 million).

 Lahiri ranked in the top 50 in the world a few years ago but has been falling to reach the top.
 

If Lahiri would hold his position till Monday, he will win the biggest ever title for an Indian golfer.

“I’m just being in the moment right now. I’m really happy. I’m confident,” Lahiri said. “You grind away, keep chipping away, keep working on your game, and when it clicks, it clicks.”
 

Lahiri, the 34-year-old son of an army doctor, prepared Saturday afternoon by wearing warm clothes to keep his vigour. As he has never experienced freezing temperature while growing up in Bangalore.

Anirban Lahiri at Players Championship 2022

He showed up at The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass (Florida, U.S.A.) in darkness Sunday morning wearing four layers of clothes -- with a fifth layer just in case, if he won’t able to bear the freezing weather.

Lahiri belongs to a Bengali family and learned to play golf at the age of eight from his father, Dr. Tushar Lahiri, a physician with the armed forces who was also a recreational golfer.