Fort Wayne, Indiana, 11-09-2015

Lahiri's blistering seven-under-65 places him second at halfway stage of Hotel Fitness Championship

Anirban Lahiri’s (69-65) blistering seven-under-65 catapulted him from overnight tied 16th to second place in the second round of the Hotel Fitness Championship, a Web.com Tour event being played at the Sycamore Hills Golf Club.

Lahiri, who made a total of 22 putts in his round which included eight putts on his first nine holes, said, “If I can keep putting like that, it works.”

The 28-year-old totalled 10-under-134 for the first two rounds to be placed one shot behind the leader Jamie Lovemark of the United States.

Lahiri, No. 40 in the Official World Golf Ranking, is playing the Web.com Tour Finals in an effort to earn his PGA TOUR card for the first time. The 18-time professional winner plans on playing the first three events of the Finals, before foregoing the Web.com Tour Championship to prepare for his first Presidents Cup appearance in Korea, where he’ll become the first Indian player to compete.

Now that Lahiri has just three weeks to secure his place inside the top 25 on the Finals money list, a repeat of his Friday’s performance over the weekend, could do the trick for him. 

Lahiri said, “You know the effort is going to be there. I’m in a decent position. We’re only halfway there, and I have to make a lot of birdies over the weekend, because the course is gettable.

“I don’t know how the weather is going to be, but I think it was good to get a low one in on a day like today, because it wasn’t particularly easy.”

Lahiri’s putting on day two was in stark contrast to his effort on the greens in round one where he made 32 putts.

Anirban, who claimed a creditable tied fifth at last month’s PGA Championship, was on fire with the putter on Friday. He sank a few 10-footers, a couple of 25-footers and didn’t need more than one putt until his 11th hole, the par-5 second.

“Yesterday, I kind of struggled with the pace on the greens. I kind of hit it firmer than I should have. Today, I slowed down my tempo a little bit to adjust. Also, the rain probably slowed it down just a little bit. I had the pace spot-on today, and that helped,” said Anirban.

After meeting with the media post-round, Lahiri headed to the range to work on his alignment. He only hit seven of 14 fairways in each of the first two rounds, but he was confident that the fix was “a minor thing.”

“I didn’t play golf for almost a week after I went back (to India) after the PGA, and I haven’t really hit that many golf balls, because I was trying to recover some energy,” Lahiri said. “I’m just trying to pace myself out. But obviously the work needs to be done, and I’m going to go to the range and probably fix that.”

Anirban had a total of eight birdies including four on the trot from the 12th to the 15th. He however, closed the round with a three-putt bogey on his final hole, the par-4 ninth.

“It was kind of poetic justice to finish with a three-putt, I guess,” said the Indian star.

Elsewhere at the European Tour’s KLM Open, both the Indian players in the field, Jeev Milkha Singh (67-72) and Shiv Kapur (71-68), missed the halfway cut of three-under-137 by two shots. 

At the Asian Development Tour’s Thongchai Jaidee Foundation tournament, Chiragh Kumar was in tied 22nd at six-under-138, 10 shots off the lead. Himmat Rai was tied 49th at three-under-141.

Feroz Singh Garewal (one-under-143) and Feroz Ali Mollah (three-over-147) missed the halfway cut by two shots and six shots respectively.