Reading the change of wind correctly and seizing his chances, Anirban Lahiri scripted one of the most dramatic finishes seen at the hallowed Delhi Golf Club course for his maiden $1.5 million Hero Indian Open golf title on Sunday.
Starting the final day seven strokes behind leader S.S.P. Chawrasia and five shots off defending champion Bangladesh’s Siddikur Rahman, Lahiri found himself tied for the lead at seven-under with his compatriot who bogeyed the 16th hole. Pars followed for both players and the tie at seven-under 277 led to a playoff.
In the playoff, on the par-5 18th hole, Chawrasia hooked his tee-shot into bushes on the right to give Lahiri a real chance to win. Lahiri kept his focus and went on to sink a birdie from around 10 feet, after it was clear that Chawrasia could not hold par.
Thus ended a dramatic day of golf that saw Chawrasia, Siddikur, Marcus Fraser (Australia), Daniel Chopra (Sweden) and Lahiri take the lead, individually or jointly.
On a windy day, now a four-time runner-up Chawrasia faltered on the front-nine and Siddikur blew away his chances coming in. Both ended up with cards of five-over 76! Fraser’s double-bogey on the 11th hole undid his good work and Chopra dropped five shots on the back-nine to fall out of contention.
Great three weeksFor Lahiri, this was a second European Tour title in three weeks, to go with the Malaysian Open title on February 8. That day, Lahiri made up a five-stroke deficit to join the select few to win the title as a Qualifying School graduate.
The latest success raises Lahiri’s world ranking from 39 to close to 30 and places him second on the European Tour Order of Merit. Lahiri, who won $250,000 and left Chawrasia with the runner-up share of $166,660, became the eighth home winner of the Open. His success was 11th for an Indian in the Open as well as on the European Tour.
Looking back, Lahiri explained, “It is incredible. Starting today, I didn’t think I had a chance. This has been a childhood dream so it isvery special to keep the Indian Open trophy at home. I really didn’t think that I will be in this position considering the way S.S.P. (Chawrasia) and Siddikur have been playing. I thought all of us were playing for third.
“I didn’t know what was going on until reached the ninth green. That’s when I looked at the leaderboard and I was one shot behind,” said the champion who later pointed to his curling chip-in to save par from around 25 feet on the 17th green as “probably the turning point of the day, besides everything that led to it.”
The scores: Anirban Lahiri (73, 65, 70, 69), S.S.P. Chawrasia (65, 67, 69, 76) 277; Joakim Lagergren (Swe) (65, 71, 73, 69), Mithun Perera (Sri) (67, 72, 70 69), Prayad Marksaeng (Tha) (68, 70, 69, 71), Marcus Fraser (Aus) 69, 70, 67, 72) 278; Romain Wattel (Fra) (70, 74, 67, 68), Richard McEvoy (Eng) (70, 67, 72, 70) and Siddikur Rahman (Ban) (65, 68, 70, 76) 279.
Other Indians: Shubhankar Sharma (69, 72, 73, 69), Jyoti Randhawa 74, 69, 69, 71) 283; Rashid Khan (71, 72, 71, 70), Manav Jaini (73, 69, 71, 71), Jeev Milkha Singh (72, 72, 68, 72) 284; Arjun Atwal (70, 70, 75, 70), S. Chikkarangappa (69, 75, 68, 73) 285; Mukesh Kumar (71, 73, 69, 73) 286; Amardip Malik (75, 69, 71, 72), Kapil Kumar (72, 72, 70, 73), Chiragh Kumar (69, 74, 70, 74) 287; Om Prakash Chouhan (71, 73, 73, 72) 289; Angad Cheema (72, 70, 71, 79) 292; Shiv Kapur (73, 69, 73, 79) 294.
