Pro golfers like Anirban Lahiri expand the game’s global footprint.
In a country where kids dream of playing for the national Cricket team, Anirban Lahiri has put India on the global golf map. Lahiri has helped bring golf to India through his play on the Asian Tour, PGA TOUR, and European Tour.
Professional Career
Anirban Lahiri was born in Pune, India in 1987 and learned to play golf from his father, a physician with the Indian armed forces. Lahiri turned professional in 2007 and started playing the Asian Tour in 2008.
Lahiri’s first pro victory came quickly, the year after he turned pro, in 2009 at the Haryana Open. He shot three 69s and a 71 to card a 10-under par 278 and win by one stroke. Moving onto a larger stage, he picked up his first Asian Tour victory in New Delhi, India at the Panasonic Open where he finished the tournament at 13 under par and won in a playoff.
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Lahiri has collected 18 tournament wins since turning pro. A majority of those victories have come on the Professional Golf Tour of India.
To throw out some numbers, Lahiri has won 11 tournaments with the Professional Golf Tour of India, seven victories on the Asian Tour, and two victories on the European Tour.
Lahiri has played in 19 PGA TOUR events over the last two years but has yet to find success in the United States. He currently ranks number 81 in the OWGR. In 2013, he was the highest ranked Indian golfer in the world at number three.
Lahiri’s best finish this season was a tie for seventh at the Maybank Malaysian Championship. He finished the 2017 Genesis Open last week with a T64 finish at two-over par.
Indian Culture
Lahiri hopes to popularize golf in India, a country better known for its passionate love affair with Cricket and with education. Lahiri told the CNN,
"India as a nation is not a sporting nation. We don’t have a big sporting culture. We have a very big education culture."
Although India has not fielded a large group of representatives at the Olympic Games or most other major sporting events that are heavily watched here in the United States, Lahiri, SSP Chawrasia, and Aditi Ashok teed it up in Rio under the Indian flag.
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Many of India’s golf courses are private and very expensive. Most of the courses are in southern parts of India and were built for the Indian Army. The country also has 22 percent of its population living under the poverty line and cannot afford the prices that golf clubs want. Lahiri hopes to get more Indians into golf.
Lahiri would like to be an inspiration to young Indians much as Tiger Woods was his inspiration growing up.
He told the New York Times prior to his first event on the PGA TOUR in 2015, “You couldn’t help but be inspired by things (Woods) did when we were kids.”
Lahiri is not the first golfer from India though. Arjun Atwal paved the way for Lahiri as he won the 2010 Wyndham Championship in North Carolina. This was the first time an Indian won a PGA TOUR event.
In a country that is run on a fast-paced lifestyle, Lahiri says that golf helps him relax. He told PGATOUR.com in 2015,
"Golf is like meditation and it’s the reason I love playing the game. For that day or week, the rest of the world ceases to exist. I go into my happy place, which is the golf course."
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While golf may not create as much excitement in a country dominated by cricket, Lahiri’s global accomplishments will hopefully inspire a new generation of Indians to take up the game.