Lahiri starts with two-under through 12 holes at the Memorial

Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri Thursday got off to a great start with a two-under for the first 12 holes at the Memorial Tournament.

Hitting his approach shots very well, Lahiri gave himself a lot of chances and converted most of them. He had four birdies and one bogey as he turned in two-under and added one more on tenth.

Lahiri has often called the Memorial as one of his favourite events, and it is played at Jack Nicklaus' course. The Memorial is where he came tied-second in 2017, which has been his best on the PGA Tour. He was tied-37th last year.

Tiger Woods, starting from the back nine, was even par through seven holes, while Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau were one-over through eight and seven holes respectively.

Lahiri birdied the second, fifth, ninth and 11th and his dropped shot came on par-5 seventh, where he went to right rough and then to a green side bunker on his third. He did have a 10-footer for par but missed it. He then missed the green on Par-3 12th and failed to hole a 10-footer for par for par and fell to two-under.

Lahiri has slipped to beyond 250 in world rankings and his last win was in 2015 on the Asian and European Tour at the Hero Indian Open.

The tournament also features India's young star Shubhankar Sharma who is due to begin later in the day. Sharma got an invite for the tournament. He played the Memorial for the first time last year and missed the cut.

It was the early stages of the first round and only Ryan Moore at six-under through 11 holes and Scott Stallings at four-under through 11 were ahead of him.

Jordan Spieth was four-under through nine holes and Russell Knox was four-under through just seven holes.

Kyoung-Hoon Lee of Korea through 13 holes, Ted Potter Jr through 10 and Austin Cook through nine holes were three-under.