Lahiri hopes to repeat last year's Top-10 performance at Travelers C'ship

Going through one of the his worst slumps this season, India's ace golfer Anirban Lahiri would be keen to turn things around at the Travelers Championship, the tournament where he finished in Top-10 last year.

Exactly a year ago, Lahiri had four rounds in the sixties to finish in the Top-10.

Since then Lahiri has managed only two other Top-10 finishes at the WGC-Bridgestone last August and T-10 OHL Mayakoba in November.

He desperately needs a turnaround as the season begins in final journey to the FedExCup play-offs in August.

Time and again Lahiri has had one or two good rounds in a week, and the last three times that he made the cuts, he started with a 68 or better but was unable to build on that.

At the Memorial, which Lahiri considers as one of his favourite events, he had a bagful of birdies but he also gave away a lot of bogeys to end at one-over total.

However, Lahiri feels he has been hitting well and giving himself chances even though things have not gone his way on the greens.

Lahiri will play his first and second rounds with Sungjae Im and Brandon Harkins here.

Sungjae, who has Top-10s at Waste Management, Palmer Invitational and Valspar had a none-too-good run after that, before he finished seventh at RBC Canadia two weeks back.

The field as such is stellar.

Though the US Open winner, Gary Woodland is taking the week off, fans will get to watch last week's runner-up and the hottest golfer right now -- Brooks Koepka -- who tees up alongside Bubba Watson, the 2018 Travelers Champion, and Tony Finau.

With two wins, The CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES and PGA Championship and runner-up finishes at the Masters and last week's U.S. Open, World No. 1 Koepka is also looking at improving his No. 3 position on the FedExCup standings.

Finau is looking for his second career PGA TOUR victory and he has five runner-up finishes since the start of the 2017-18 season. His five runner-up finishes since 2017 are the most and he is tied there with Koepka.

Another interesting group has Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth and Marc Leishman. A two-time winner of the event, Mickelson has not played in the Travelers Championship since 2003, while Spieth is in search of his first victory since The 2017 Open Championship, which came in his first start following his playoff win at the Travelers Championship.

Leishman is the 2012 Travelers Championship, leads the Presidents Cup International Team standings.

Paul Casey, Jason Day and Bryson DeChambeau are paired together in another featured group.

Casey, a winner this season at the Valspar Championship, has three top-fives in four starts in the Travelers Championship, including a playoff loss to Watson in 2015, and a T2 in 2018.

Yet another interesting grouping sees, Patrick Cantlay, the 2018 Open winner Francesco Molinari and Justin Thomas. Cantlay won the Memorial Tournament three weeks back, while Molinari has three top-fives in the 2018-19 season, including his third PGA TOUR victory at the the Arnold Palmer Invitational.