I want to end the year ranked in the top 60: Anirban Lahiri

Currently ranked 99th in the world, Anirban Lahiri is India’s best golfer by some distance. Having finished third on the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit last season, he has set his sights on moving in to the top 60 by the end of 2014. Firstpost sat down with the 27-year-old Lahiri during last month’s Louis Phillipe Cup to talk about Indian golf, playing in the Majors and why he needs to become a better ball-striker. Edited excepts of our conversation are below. Firstpost: It has been a good last few months for you. What does it do for you going into this season? What is your confidence level like? Lahiri: It is good. Obviously, it is nice to have so many good finishes under the belt. Unfortunately, I don’t have any status in Europe. [caption id=“attachment_1431485” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Anirban Lahiri playing in the King’s Cup earlier this year. Getty Images[/caption] I will be playing a lot on the Asian Tour and I will be working hard to improve my world rankings because that is one way of getting on to the bigger tours. I am setting myself a top-60 goal by the end of the year. Ideally, if I can get there before the end of the year, then I will push for a top-50 spot. Also, on the Asian Tour I would like to win both abroad and in India. Try to get more than one win this year. I think I am playing well enough to do that. Also, making some changes in my swing. Having played with a lot of the best players in the world recently, I have felt I need to improve my quality of ball striking and my short game. Firstpost: Indians have done well in European and Asian Tour events in India. Is there a mental adjustment necessary to win outside the country? Lahiri: I think the difference is not so much to do with being uncomfortable abroad. It is to do with being more comfortable at home. I think I find myself very comfortable abroad in Asia. Been playing for a while now. Feel very much at home. Played most of the golf courses. It is not new. But obviously when you are playing at home, there is a little added confidence, a little more self belief. That is why we win more frequently at home. But I don’t see why we couldn’t win abroad. I think Gagan [Bhullar] has shown that. So it is not rocket science. We are all good players. It is all about putting four days together. As soon as we do that abroad, we will win. Firstpost: You mentioned needing to improve your ball-striking and your short game. What are the differences you have noticed during your time on tour? Lahiri: A bit of flexibility, I think. All the world-class players that I have played with seem to have the ability to shape it at will. Number two, the consistency of their ball flight is something I am looking to achieve. I wouldn’t say I am a bad ball-striker but you can always get a little bit better. Playing in India, we get spoiled because we play short courses; we are hitting wedges and short irons all the time. But when we play in Europe and abroad, a lot of the courses you are hitting mid-irons and long irons on par fours, which is an alien concept in India. That is where we struggle because we don’t play enough courses where we hit five-irons and four-irons and six-irons into par fours. That is where the next level of ball-striking comes into play. All the world class players are equally comfortable making birdies with six-irons and five-irons. Firstpost: You played in the British Open in 2012. What was that like and what did you learn from that experience? Lahiri: It was a fantastic experience. The fact that I had such a great Open Championship, such a great debut was phenomenal. But those are the kind of events where you really learn about a different dimension of the sport, especially the golf course, the weather, the field. I learned a lot. Played with a lot of good players. It helped with my confidence, my overall experience in handling different conditions. It was a very critical experience in my career so far. Firstpost: Are you looking at getting on the European Tour next year? Lahiri: Absolutely. That would be another one of my goals. I have to get my card for Europe. I have to give myself the opportunity to compete on the better tours; Europe being the next level. Firstpost: Is the PGA Tour is something you are looking at? Lahiri: I am looking at it but I am not looking at qualifying for it. I am looking at getting into it through my world rankings. You finish Top 50, you get 14 invites. You get the World Golf Championships and the Majors. That’s seven events right there. You got eight more. It should be good enough to keep your card if you play well. Firstpost: How do you see Indian golf at the moment? Lahiri: We have been through a transition over the last five or six years. Gagan, myself, Himmat [Rai], we have kind of, I won’t say taken over, but we have kind of come in and given that boost that was required. Obviously, Jeev [Milkha Singh], Jyothi [Randhawa], Arjun [Atwal], they are the three stalwarts. Shiv [Kapur] has done his bit over the years. But it is nice that we have been able to come it and take our games from the Indian tour level to the Asian tour level. Gagan, again, is the first one to get into Europe. I think more of us will be joining him. So I think it is a good transition. Looking at the situation now, you see guys like Angad Cheema, Rashid Khan has proven himself, Chikka [Senappa Chikkarangappa], Khalid Joshi. So there is a lot of young talent – early 20s talent – who have a lot of potential. If they have the right focus and the right guidance, they are good enough to play at the highest level. It is a good time professionally and hopefully the bench strength keeps coming through. Firstpost: Is there a rivalry developing between you guys? Do you push each other to do better? Lahiri: Gagan and me and Himmat, we have been on junior teams, amateur teams. We have been playing competitive golf together, with each other for more than a decade now. It has always been something that has boosted all of us. When I have won an event, Himmat or Gagan says, he has win, I can win it too. So I think it is a very positive, healthy camaraderie/rivalry. I won’t even call it a rivalry But yes, you want to be the best and you want to be competitive. So you are always trying to be ahead of everyone else. Not just one or two other people. It is a very good motivation for all us. Firstpost: How important is coaching? Do you think we need more professional coaches in this country? Lahiri: Just sheer numbers won’t really help. You need the right kind of quality coming through. The Indian National Golf Academy is working on it. My coach, Mr. Divecha, is part of that machinery. That has been one of his goals. First to educate himself and attain a certain level of coaching ability and then to pass that on and create more quality coaches. And I think that is beginning to happen. Ten or 15 years ago, you could have counted on your hand how many coaches we had. Most of them were former players. Now we have coaches who have never played professional golf and that is a good sign. It means they are committed to teaching the sport and I think that’s the kind of commitment we need form the teachers. That does need to keep going in an upward graph and that needs to keep going in the right direction.