Ponte Vedra (USA), Mar 10 (PTI) Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri will return to PGA Tour's flagship event — the Players Championship — for the fifth time this week, aiming to make a mark in a star-studded field that includes Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy among others.
Lahiri was the first alternate to start with, but then made it to the main draw as former World No. 1 Brooks Koepka pulled out due an injury.
"It's nice to be back. I didn't realise it's my fifth time back. I really like this golf course, I love the way it is set up and I feel like it's one of those tracks where I can do really well. My record doesn't show that though," he said.
"The game has been a little patchy, up and down, but I think it's trending back in the right direction. I have a couple of things that I've been working on and they seem to be falling into place, so it's all about putting it together now," he added.
The 154-player field includes more than 100 PGA Tour winners and 48 of the world's Top-50 are at TPC Sawgrass including Bryson Dechambeau, Justin Thomas and many others.
Apart from the star-studded field, the tournament will also set a unique landmark.
This week, golf fans will be able to enjoy every shot live on GOLFTV powered by PGA Tour.
It will be available from the first round and every shot by every player will be live-streamed on GOLFTV allowing fans to follow any player in the elite field.
More than 32,000 shots are expected over 72 holes from a starting field.
Lahiri has played at the Players both in May and March and sees a change in weather between the two periods.
"Well, obviously three of my previous appearances were in May, with different weather. I played in 2019 in March. But it's going to be slightly different in terms of the temperatures and the wind. If anything, I think this is probably a better wind for my game style.
"So the one thing I haven't done as well in the past is probably hit as many fairways as you need to. On the weekend the greens are going to get really firm and fast, we all know that.
"So it's going to be critical to come in from the short grass to really control the ball and that's going to be my mine focus this week," he said.
Lahiri did not make it to the field at last year's edition of Players, and the event itself was cancelled after the first round and the Tour shut down for three months.
"Well I think it's been a year now, a full circle pretty much since COVID struck the golfing world. For me it was, there was a lot of good that came out of it. I did get a lot done in India, I went back for the Hero Indian Open, which was the week after THE PLAYERS last year.
"And that ended up being a good thing for me, because I got a lot of time at home with my coach and just managed to reassemble all the parts that were kind of getting a little rickety."
