Kohler :Anirban Lahiri managed to hang in for an impressive round of two-under 70 and a tied 15th place despite the wind that picked when he was on back and costed him a double bogey on the 18th on the first day of the PGA Championships at Whistling Straits.
Lahiri, who had six birdies, three on either side of the turn, also had two bogeys on the 11th and 14th and a disappointing double bogey on the closing 18th, which played as the hardest hole on the course.
Higher winds greeted those with afternoon tee times and resulted in scoring differences between morning and afternoon groups. There were 25 sub-par rounds from among morning groups and only 13 among those in afternoon. The morning saw 12 rounds in 60s and only two from the afternoon.
Lahiri, winner of Malaysian Open and Hero Indian Open this season, and currently ranked No. 53 in the world, agreed the conditions were tough out there, but said, “I am pretty happy with the way I played. I missed a few short putts but I also made a couple of long ones.”
Lahiri’s card of 70 saw him tied with eight other including Asia’s only Major winner, Y E Yang of Korea.
Lahiri opened with a flourish with a birdie on the first and added two more on the fourth and seventh to turn in three-under. He added a fourth birdie on 10th, at which point he was very briefly even in top-5 on the leaderboard.
His first bogey on 11th was quickly compensated by a birdie on par-3 12th. He again dropped a shot on 14th but picked a birdie on par-5 16th, where he even had an 18-footer for an eagle.
Following a par on 17th, where he hit a great approach shot, Lahiri was four-under at the 18th tee. But he went onto the fairway bunker, which was rather hard and ended with a double bogey.
On the front nine, where Lahiri was three-under, he also missed a 14-footer for birdie on second, a nine-footer on par-3 third and on the apr-5 fifth, he hit his third shot to 10 feet two inches, but missed the birdie putt.
However, he did hole a neat 23-footer on par-3 seventh and earlier holed another on fourth from almost 35 feet, both for birdies.
On the back nine, Lahiri missed an eight-footer for birdie on 11th and bogeyed the par-4 when he went into the bunker and was not able to roll in a 25-28 footer for par. Then came the final double on 18th.
PTI