Every week has been a learning curve on the PGA Tour: Anirban Lahiri

It has been a banner year for Anirban Lahiri, India’s No. 1 professional golfer. He won twice on the European tour, broke into the World top 50 and finished in the top five at the PGA Championship, the year’s fourth Major. It was the best ever finish by an Indian golf at a Major, topping Jeev Milkha Singh’s ninth place in the same tournament in 2008. [caption id=“attachment_2451932” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Anirban Lahiri. Getty Images[/caption] The cherry on top of this cake for Lahiri is a place on the President’s Cup, the bi-annual team competition that pits the best of the United States against the best of Asia, that takes place next week. Lahiri has also done enough to earn his PGA Tour card for 2016 and should be playing there full time next season. This week, Lahiri is in Bangalore preparing for the President’s Cup and Firstpost caught up with him over the phone to talk about his year. Edited excerpts below: The PGA Tour tagline is “These guys are good”. When did you realise that you could hang with these guys? It came over the last few years. The last 24 months – 18 months – I’ve seen my game get to a level where I feel I can compete. It started two years back where I played the CMBC classic with Pat Perez, a PGA Tour regular. He started talking to me on the back nine and said why don’t you come to America. He mentioned to me that it is harder for people like [me] who are good enough to play on the PGA Tour. I was not expecting to hear that. I was surprised. I was encouraged to hear that from a PGA Tour regular. He has obviously been there, done that. He knows what he is saying. Arjun [Atwal] and Danny [Daniel Chopra] said the same thing to me last year – that I hit long enough and have a good enough overall game to play there, so start making more effort to get on the PGA tour. Get these tidbits along the way and it gives you a confidence boost. At the end of the day, it boils down to how you play against the best. If you can compete in a world class field, you can play at that level. It is about what kind of golf you can play. It doesn’t matter where you are born. If your level of golf is good enough to play at a higher level, that is what you should aspire to do. What did you learn from playing the PGA Tour this year? You learn all the time, every tournament, every week. It has been a big learning curve. Different golf courses, different conditions. The way of life is different. Have to get comfortable with that. We play on rye grass, we play on blue grass. Courses are longer. Greens are softer, much faster. Playing conditions are night and day. Around the greens, the big difference the grass makes is in chipping and pitching. How the ball reacts. Sometimes it might require an equipment change or a technique change. You have to learn to play with different kinds of wedges. Need to control spin. Huge change of tactics. You have to go there and, not acclimatise, but tune in to the conditions. When it comes to the touch shots, you have to do it on site. It takes a lot of getting used to Every time I leave to play for a tournament, I have anywhere from 17 to 21 clubs [in competition, a maximum of 14 clubs is permitted]. My bag weighs 26 or 27 kilos. What was your best moment on tour? Definitely the PGA Championship. From start to finish, I felt comfortable and confident all week. That was definitely my best week in America. What was the worst? The most frustrating was the Players Championship [in May, where Anirban missed the cut]. Last event I played early in the year. I felt like I played decent but I kept making silly mistakes. Dropping shots from good position. Made mental errors and judgment errors. Very frustrating. Was not playing badly but nothing seemed to go right. Looking back at the PGA Championship, are you happy with where you finished or do you feel you could have been higher up the leaderboard? I feel like I could have done better. That is something ever player feels. I can’t feel too bad about it though. A couple of shots might have got me my card. One shot would have got me into every Major next year. But it is something you learn from. If you could get one mulligan, is there a shot you would want to hit over again? There would be about 100 [laughs]. Probably the tee-shot on 18 on the Sunday at the PGA. I put myself in a terrible position and it was nearly impossible to make par. How are you feeling ahead of the President’s Cup? Lots of excitement. Lots of anticipation. Something that you have been waiting for. Something you targeted or wanted to do all your life. I can’t wait to get to Korea and get with the team and get into the spirit and trying to win the cup back. That is what everyone on the international team is thinking about. To be a part of a special effort is the focus. Got to do whatever it takes to win the cup back.