By V.Krishnaswamy, @Swinging_Swamy

Shubhankar Sharma got off to his best start since February as he carded one-under 70 in the first round of the challenging Renaissance Club in the Scottish Open on Thursday.

Sharma with two birdies against one bogey is Tied-39^th, even as his colleague Gaganjeet Bhullar struggled to six-over-par 77 that included a closing triple bogey.

The early starters had to contend with cold, damp and windy conditions and Sharma, playing with his good friend and Indian pro player, Ainesh Ahluwalia, as his caddie, did well to do that with some steady play.

Sharma had a bogey on second, but birdies on fifth and 15^th and pars rest of the round meant a 70.

Veteran Lee Westwood, who turned 47 in April, carded a flawless nine-under 62 to lead the tournament he won 22 years ago at Loch Lomond. Westwood’s card included two eagles in the space of five holes and added five birdies as the Rolex Series returned at The Renaissance Club. He led by a shot over Sweden’s Alexander Bjork and Joost Luiten of the Netherlands.

Defending champion Bernd Wiesberger carded an opening one-under-par 70, with playing partner Tommy Fleetwood a shot better off after recovering from two over par after nine holes with four birdies on the back nine.

Among some Asian Tour stars were Malaysia’s Gavin Green (70) and Thailand’s Jazz Janewattanond (70). Last week’s runner-up Aaron Rai and Matt Wallace also shot 70.

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By V.Krishnaswamy, @Swinging_Swamy

Anirban Lahiri’s hot putter got him off to a flying start in the opening round of the Sanderson Farms Championship. A bogey free 66, one of his best starts in last four years, put him in tied-seventh and two shots behind co-leaders Charley Hoffman and Jimmy Walker, who started from different ends of the course, but came back with similar results of eight-under. Later, Kevin Chappell and defending champion Sebastian Munoz joined him at the top for a four-way lead. Matt Gligic of Canada is fifth at 7-under in Mississippi, US,

Lahiri was tied for seventh were JT Poston, Keegan Bradley, Cameron Davis and Talor Gooch.

Lahiri knows he needs a good result each week to get into the following week and he is embracing the pressure. Playing at the Sanderson Farms for only the second time – he was T-45 last year – Lahiri said the Country Club of Jackson reminds him of golf courses he grew up playing on in Asia.

Among other Asian stars, Korea’s K.H. Lee opened with a 68. Chinese Taipei’s C.T. Pan shot 2-under 70, Sungjae Im  carded 1-under 71, Si Woo Kim (72), Byeong Hun An (73), Xinjun Zhang (73), Satoshi Kodaira and Sung Kang (74 each), KJ Choi (76) and Kiradech Aphibarnrat (77).

Lahiri said, “This is the kind of a start I have been looking for and trying to get with good starts. Even though the game has been there for the last couple of starts, there has been a little bit of volatility. So to open with a bogey free round I am happy. I have put in a lot of work in my iron play. I had a chat with my coach Vijay Divecha and my short game coach is here on site and he gave me some of his observations. That was the main point, not of concern, but inconsistency.

“So, it was good to see myself hit some good iron shots and it was very satisfying. Otherwise relatively stress free, even though the course is a little tricky, but playing in morning it was soft. It is important to play well on first two days and it is important as the greens are among the fastest we play and it will become drier as we go on.”

Lahiri will need another top-10 finish like last week to get a start next week at the Shriners Hospital Open in Vegas.

He said, “I find myself in a weird place in terms of my eligibility. You know, I obviously haven’t had very good seasons the last couple of years and I missed a bunch of events. I have to just kind of play my way into events, and that’s really the first priority, to have the right kind of schedule, to have a full go at the golf courses that I like to play and just get back to contending or getting into contention. So there’s a lot of those goals and they really motivate you.”

Lahiri, who had had two birdies on the front nine and four more on the back nine, besides missing a couple of other makeable ones, said, “It was lots of good combinations. Obviously confidence is up. I feel like I’m playing really well. I like this golf course. Last year was my first time here. It reminds me a lot of the tracks I grew up playing in Asia. Probably not greens this quick, but similar to look at.”

The highlight was his excellent form around the greens. It included a brilliant 24-foot birdie putt on Par-3 seventh and chip-in birdie from the fringe 31 feet away on par-four 12^th.

Lahiri, who got into the field for this week on the strength of his Top-10 finish last week, found only half the fairways but reached 15 of the 18 the greens in regulation and whenever he was more than 15-20 feet from the pin, he did well to get into tap-in range and made no  mistakes.

He did miss a nine-footer on Par-4 second and a 10-footer for birdie on Par-5 fifth. Yet the work he has put into his game during the lockdown is beginning to pay off. Later his 26-foot putt for birdie on 16^th stopped an inch short on the lip of the hole.

Asked if he feels the pressure of doing well week to week to get into events, Lahiri added, “I don’t know (if it is) hard or easy, I’m just doing the same things that I did last week and the week before that in Napa, as well. I’m just trying to stick to my process and the results are coming right now. I’m swinging it good, feel like I’ve got a good grip on my putter right now. I feel confident. I guess it’s good to have that motivation to get to Vegas now, I guess, or maybe even better.”

On the turnaround in form, Lahiri felt, “I think the lockdown really helped to start. I think the lockdown really helped me. I was in India for five months. I left pretty much the Monday after Bay Hill to go play the Hero Indian Open and then we got locked in. They closed the borders down. So I was there for a long time. Spent about 40 days straight with my coach (Vijay Divecha) before I came back out here, and I got back to the basics, undid a lot of the bad habits that had crept into the game and just tried to clean up the game, clean up the mind and just prepare.”

What if he does not get into Top-10 and can play next week in Vegas, Lahiri simply said, “I will go back and have a great week with my family and come back out in Bermuda and try and contend that week.”

But for now, the Sanderson Farms Championship and adding another good result is uppermost in his mind.

Ends.

By V.Krishnaswamy, @Swinging_Swamy

Anirban Lahiri and Arjun Atwal will tee up together in the same group at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship starting on Thursday. While Lahiri, who was T-36 at Safeway Open, makes his second start of the season, Atwal, who played four events when golf returned after the hiatus due to Covid-19, makes his first start of the new season. They are grouped together alongside David Hearn in the Dominican Republic.

There is more Indian connection, as the field also includes two-time PGA Tour winner, the Indo-Swede Daniel Chopra, a great friend of both Lahiri and Atwal. Yet another one in the field is 18-year-old left-hander Akshay Bhatia, who is of Indian origin, but was born and brought up in the United States, and is now mentored by Phil Mickelson.

Lahiri and Atwal go off together at 11.30 am local time on first day, while Daniel Chopra plays with Johnson Wagner and Seamus Power in one of the earliest groups at 6.50 am, and Akshay Bhatia plays with Ted Purdy, who an Asian Tour event in India in 1997, and Joseph Bramlett at 8 am.

The Asian Tour flag will also be flown by Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Joohyung Kim and Kurt Kitayama this week.

Lahiri was happy with his start at Safeway Open and is hoping to gain further momentum, as he makes his debut at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in the Dominican Republic.

A confident Lahiri, said, “The game feels really good at the moment. Safeway was a good confidence booster as after the bad start, I was able to finish strong which felt great.”

Playing in his sixth season on the PGA Tour, Lahiri had done well to recover from a first round 74 at Safeway to add rounds of 65, 67 and 70. It was his best finish since T30 at the Valspar Championship in March, 2019 and his second round 65 was his lowest score since shooting the same number during the second round of the John Deere Classic in July, 2019.

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA – AUGUST 13: Anirban Lahiri of India plays his shot from the 18th tee during the first round of the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club on August 13, 2020 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

“I spent a lot of time during lockdown in India, where I went for Hero Indian Open (his last win came at the same event in 2015) but with it being cancelled and the lockdown happening I stayed on in India with the family. And I returned for just one event, Wyndham, in the previous season and then the Safeway. So, I rested and also worked during my downtime at home with my coach Vijay Divecha,” said Lahiri, a former two-time Presidents Cup International Team member. “We worked on various aspects, broke down everything and did a lot of work on swing and re-built it in a way.”

Lahiri, who is making his first trip to the Corales Golf Club, which has six holes that run along the Caribbean Ocean, said, “The golf course here reminds me of my days on the Asian Tour. Similar grasses and temperatures and conditions to what I played for years back home. Definitely a feeling of familiarity even though it’s my first time here.”

Atwal, India’s first and only winner to date on the PGA TOUR, is seeking a strong start to the 2020-21 season. He played in four events when golf returned to action during the pandemic. He made cuts in three of them, and missed only once in Wyndham, an event he won in 2010.

“It felt good during that stretch and playing four times in seven weeks also gave me an idea of my strength, because during practise rounds, we mostly use carts. I am proud that I held up at 47,” said Atwal with a characteristic laugh. “It will be great to play with Anirban. It is like playing at home and in a great atmosphere and the venue itself is superb. I am looking forward to this.”

The field has some familiar Asian Tour names like Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Kurt Kitayama.

The highest ranked player in the field Henrik Stenson at No. 43 and it also includes the defending champion Graeme McDowell, who while winning the 2019 edition ended a five-year-long PGA Tour title drought, though he won in February this year. He has however missed seven cuts in his last nine starts since the Tour re-started in June.

One of the most keenly watched players will be Will Zalatoris, who in his first start on PGA Tour since Wyndham 2018, finished T-6 at the US Open at Winged Foot. This Korn Ferry graduate is the one to watch for in the near future.

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As if the fledgling career of Korean teenager Joohyung Kim could not get any more exciting, this week he tees-off in the Caribbean at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship – in the Dominican Republic.

And in what is only his third start on the PGA Tour, there is one thing he is focused on.

“It’s what I’ve learned from my past couple of events,” said Kim, at his first virtual press conference on the PGA Tour.

“I think that’s my goal this week, just play really smart, take advantage when you can, not to get too aggressive, just play my own game. And that’s always been me.”

In August, he made his debut on the PGA Tour at the PGA Championship – where he missed the cut in what was also his first appearance at a Major championship.

But two weeks ago at the Safeway Open – the opening event of the 2020/2021 season – impressively, he played all four rounds shooting 67, 72, 75 and 70 to finish in a tie for 67^th on four under.

HONG KONG- The Hong Kong Open at the Fanling Golf Club, Fanling, Hong Kong, the Asian Tour USD$ 1 million event is the season opener. Pictured by Paul Lakatos / Asian Tour.

“Sometimes you get gnarly lies here and just tough pins, sometimes you just really have to take your medicine, just make a good bogey instead of like at the Safeway Open. I remember I shot five under the first round, gave myself a good chance, so kind of felt like I wanted to keep shooting under par. I went for a lot of pins which I shouldn’t have, I was playing really aggressive and I feel like sometimes you don’t need to do that,” added the Korean, who is just 18 years old.

“I feel like I was pushing myself a lot and I made a lot of soft bogeys and a lot of mistakes. I didn’t really have the week that I wanted. Even in the PGA Championship, I just kind of pushing too hard. And, you know, with the conditions, sometimes a soft bogey is okay.”

At the PGA Championship he shot rounds of 70 and 77 to miss the cut by six.

Last year, after earning a battlefield promotion from the Asian Development Tour by winning three events, the youngster made an instant impact by winning on just his third start on the Asian Tour at the Panasonic Open India.

That made him the second youngest professional to win on the Asian Tour at 17 years and 149 days, with countryman Seungyul Noh being the youngest when he won the 2008 Midea China Classic at the age of 17 years and 143 days.

When asked about his long-term ambitions in the game, the confident Korean did not beat around the bush.

“I really would love to be world number one. That has always been like a goal just because Tiger Woods was so dominant as world number one for so many years. So that has always been like a major thing for me.

“I would obviously love to play on the PGA Tour, win all four majors, be in the Golf Hall of Fame – just those big things I always would love.”

And when asked how his English name, which is Tom, came about, he replied: “Actually, it was actually Thomas. I got it from Thomas the Train [Thomas the Tank Engine television series] when I was young. As I grew older, some people started calling me Tom and I thought it was just shorter and just simpler. I think by the time I was like 11, I went just by Tom. My brother even calls me Tom. It was kind of natural. And my family calls me Tom as well, my friends all call me Tom, so it kind of came natural to me. It was that kind of a name. I had the whole thing, I had the lunchbox, I had the toys, yeah.”

This week, he has been paired in the first two rounds with Swede Carl Pettersson and Michael Gligic from Canada, at 1pm local time in the Dominican Republic.

Ends.

Follow the live scores of The 36th Shinhan Donghae Open here.