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  Anirban Lahiri one shot off lead in Phoenix Open

Anirban Lahiri one shot off lead in Phoenix Open

PTI
Published : Feb 6, 2016, 5:08 am IST
Updated : Feb 6, 2016, 5:08 am IST

Anirban Lahiri got off to a strong start with a five-under 66 to lie one shot behind the leaders at the Waste Management Phoenix Open golf tournament.

Anirban Lahiri
 Anirban Lahiri

Anirban Lahiri got off to a strong start with a five-under 66 to lie one shot behind the leaders at the Waste Management Phoenix Open golf tournament.

Lahiri was tied fourth and a stroke behind the leading trio of Rickie Fowler, Shane Lowery and last year’s co-runner-up Hideki Matsuyama who carded 65 each.

Lahiri spent a session with putting guru Dave Stockton, whom he met for the first time on Wednesday and immediately reaped benefits from it. He was perfect inside 10 feet and made seven birdies.

“I was cluttered and needed to get a more systematic process I can follow. I’m not very technical by nature. I like to visualise and feel the shots and that’s not how I putted before,” Lahiri said.

Stockton told him to ‘simplify’ the process and it worked. Lahiri started on the tenth, and after a opening par, he flourished with three birdies in a row from the 11th to the 13th and then after a dropped shot on the 15th, picked two more birdies on 16th and 17th to turn in four-under.

On his second nine at TPC Scottsdale, he bogeyed the first but picked birdies on the third and sixth holes and negotiated the rest in pars for a first day’s work of five-under 66 at the par-71 course.

Fowler, who like Lahiri missed the cut at last week at Torrey Pines in the Farmers Insurance Open, opened with a 65 that included three birdies and an eagle in his first five holes.

Location: United States, Arizona, Scottsdale