Lots of money but greens still wanting: Experts on golfer Anirban Lahiri

“The beauty about what we do,” Anirban Lahiri said at the pre-tournament press conference of the Players Championship, “is that you’re one week away from being a PGA Tour winner. You’re one week away from being at Augusta… one week away from you having a different kind of conversation with me.”

If it sounded hopeful for the time (from a player who needed hope beyond anything else), now it sounds almost prescient. Consider the facts. Going into that press conference, Lahiri had missed five of seven cuts in his Players Championship career and three of four cuts on the Tour coming into this year’s event. His highest finish in his last 14 starts was T40. He was ranked 332nd in the world, among the very lowest in the field.

Now, a week later, we are having a different kind of conversation. Anirban Lahiri, two-time Olympian, one-time prodigy and Indian golf’s eternal journeyman, finished solo-second at the Players Championship day on Tuesday. More than the whooping prize money (Rs 16.7 crore), it is also a breath of life into a career that was stagnating towards a dead end. Lahiri’s seven-year title drought continues, and yet, this runners-up finish is a win of its own kind. The statistics are only half the story. The rest of it is of hope, of talent wilting under pressure.

“I’m proud of the way he played,” his long-time coach Vijay Divecha says. “Giving it everything till the last hole. That’s very encouraging for me. Finally, he’s showing us what he’s capable of doing”. Lahiri had long needed this. Not just a moment back in the limelight, but also some confidence in his own game. And he did so at the best stage possible.

The Player Championship is widely considered the fifth Major in golf — the PGA Championship, the Masters, the US Open and the Open Championship are the originals — and is the best attended event outside of them. The event’s prize money of $20 million is nearly double that of any of the other Majors, comfortably the biggest individual purse in golf history.

Stakes for Indian golf

In addition to the prize money, his latest performance has launched Lahiri into the top 100 in the world (89) and may well help him retain his status on the PGA Tour for the next season. It also put the focus back on the sport seven months after Aditi Ashok’s fourth place at the Olympics and four years after Shubhankar Sharma’s wins on the European Tour — a brutal reminder of how tough the competition is at the higher echelons of the sport.

“It’s also important to remember that outside of these three, there are almost no Indian golfers at the PGA Tour or European Tour. Most play on the Asian Tour, where the rewards are fewer, and the eyeballs negligible,” former India No 1 Indrajit Bhalotia says.

“To play golf in India you have to be part of an exclusive group, with access to private clubs or the army courses (Lahiri comes from an army family),” he adds.

Bhalotia says that investment in the sport is also tough to find and very hard to access. ITC and Hero have over the years been the two big patrons of Indian golf — but the former’s patronage has reduced massively over the past few years. Golfer and 1982 Asian Games gold medallist Rishi Narain also believes that those in charge have little interest in marketing the sport. “Even if you think about it in the context of Anirban,” he says, “you hardly get to see him play. There is no broadcast in India. Additionally, we aren't doing enough to highlight his achievements, use him to attract more eyeballs, get more sponsors. PGTI (Professional Golf Tour of India) has to stop thinking administratively and also consider marketing as part of its agenda now.”  

Bhalotia is blunt. “The CEOs of all top companies in the country are at a golf course every week. It's not too tough to convince them to do more for the sport. It's just that those running the show lack desire.”

Even elite players competing on the European Tour (Lahiri and Arjun Atwal are the only Indians on the PGA Tour for 2022), despite their endorsements, risk a lot of money just to compete. “It costs about Rs 1.5 lakh a week for these guys just to compete at that level,” Bhalotia says. “Unlike other sports, golfers pay for their own travel, stay, amenities, caddies.”

When asked at the penultimate day’s play on how he planned to hold off his nearest challengers, the Bangalorean was philosophical, and practical: “You just do what you need to do next. You go to sleep, you wake up, you stretch, do your routine, warm up, go and hit the next shot.”