Dublin (Ohio): Anirban Lahiri shot two-under par round of 70 in the first round to remain tied 44th with Jordan Spieth in the Memorial Golf Championship being held at the Muirfield Village.
The 28-year-old Indian ace, who finished tied 6th at the Colonial last week for his first Top-10 of the season, and finished second in the European-Asian Tour event, Hero Indian Open in March, was disappointed with the score, but not his performance.
Starting on the 10th, Lahiri had four birdies and two bogeys, on the ninth and 18th, but more importantly he missed a bunch of short birdie putts.
Lahiri birdied 12th, 14th, fifth and seventh and dropped bogeys on 18th and ninth. Lahiri missed three putts inside eight and a half feet and two of them were on par-fives.
After missing short putts for birdies on the Par-fives on the back stretch he birdied both par-fives on front stretch. But at the finish, Lahiri missed a birdie putts just over five feet on par-3 eighth and then one just one under seven feet for par on ninth. But for those misses, he may well have been around 67-68.
At the top, Dustin Johnson blitzed the course with 10 birdies and finished with a round of eight-under 64, while the ‘Top 3’ in the world had mixed results.
World No 1 Jason Day opened with a 66, while No. 2 Jordan Spieth shot 70 and Rory McIlroy had a 71. Johnson’s 64 gave him one shot lead over Brendan Steele (65) and there were five players, including Day and Matt Kuchar at 66.
Hudson Swafford, who also shot 66 had a front nine of 29 with five birdies and an eagle.
Lahiri said,”I played pretty good today. I had a stretch of 8 or nine holes mid-round where I tried to push too hard and lost some momentum. What was disappointing was that I missed at least 3 putts from short range today that cost me a solid round.”
He added,”I am somewhat disappointed not to have put up a score in the sixties today. (But) I am still feeling and playing good. So (I am) hoping to recover over the next three days.”
Johnson set the pace early with 10 birdies enroute to 8-under 64, and it came quite appropriately a day after Spieth referred to Johnson as the most talented player on the PGA TOUR.
