Melbourne, Australia, 23-11-2018
Indian duo returns a 72 in brutal conditions during second round foursomes to rise to tied third at World Cup of Golf, lie two off the lead
Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar of India withstood the brutal weather as they returned with a 72 to tie in third place alongside Malaysia, Italy and England at the prestigious US$7 million World Cup of Golf.
After Friday's Foursomes match, the Indian team trails the joint leaders Belgium and Korea by two shots.
The 56-man field from 28 countries, including six Asian nations, is vying to hoist the famous trophy in the event, won previously by many legends of the games.
The tournament will switch back to fourballs for Saturday’s third round, with the final round moving back to foursomes on Sunday.
Lahiri said, "I think it's one of the toughest rounds of golf I've played in my career, in a long, long time. I think we both did really well out there and it wasn't easy.
"Well, this is more like playing in Scotland, I think. We both had some experience playing links golf and you can draw to that with this and I think that experience came in handy. We both played a bunch overseas and you need that, you really needed that today.
"I think it was just one shot at a time, you know, for both of us. I think that's what we do really well. Whether we made a good putt or we hit a bad shot, we didn't carry that forward, we left it behind and we just focused on the next shot and that's the only way you can play in conditions like that. I think we both did that well today.
"It was pretty consistent. We had a couple lapses in concentration which I did on the front nine. Maybe I could have made a couple of shorter ones, but Gaganjeet made a lot of par saves and you need that. You're not going to have easy pars all day on a day like this and we did that really well coming in.
"It’s going to be another tough day tomorrow with the weather forecast. Of course it's a different format, but I think we can only start looking at the leaderboard on Sunday afternoon.
"Our goal is to just go out there tomorrow and make a lot of birdies, because you just have to stay in there, you have to give yourself a chance. The good thing, both of us are playing really well, so I don't see a weak link in the team at the moment."
Bhullar said, "The plan was to hit all the fairways, all the greens and make most of the putts, and as Anirban said, we played really well today. Anirban hit the ball so well from the tee, but I got all my favorite numbers.
"And putting‑wise, I think Anirban had some really good putts and I holed a few par saves. I think that kept the momentum going and that was one of the reasons we ended up playing well.
"That birdie on the first gave us a really good start. We made a long putt like from 40 to 50 feet. After that, the round was pretty smooth all the way until we dropped one shot on the seventh hole but we picked up a shot on the ninth. Then I think the birdie on the 13th gave us a lot of good momentum.
"We made a 25-footer on 13. I think it was just like one of those rounds where making pars are really good. We were just motivating each other and keeping the ball in play, that was the goal."
Source: Asian Tour
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