When Anirban Lahiri tees up at the RBC Heritage this week, he won’t need to look far for inspiration. He was overjoyed to see Hideki Matsuyama, one of his good mates on the PGA TOUR, win a historic Masters Tournament final weekend.
In addition, Lahiri, who’s used to having his coach Vijay Divecha with him in the U.S. for each 2 to three months, is lastly re-united for 3 weeks. Divecha arrived at the begin of the Masters week, which was an off week for Lahiri.
After struggling for fairly a while earlier than ending fifth at the Valero Texas Open, an upbeat Lahiri mentioned, “We’ll get to work on the other departments and just try and build. It will be nice to actually have him take over and have me think less and do more. It’s been tough the last three or four weeks just grinding, grinding, and grinding and working hard. So it felt nice to be rewarded by a nice week (in Texas). And now Vijay can add to that. Having him is a big change. It is a big difference.”
Divecha will spend round three weeks with Lahiri. Divecha mentioned, “We work in the week of Masters, play the RBC Heritage and have another week off to work. Then let’s see.”
The confidence of a top-5 in Texas was well timed and seeing his good pal, Matsuyama win one of the largest prizes in the sport, has been a giant increase.
“Hideki is a good friend since we played on the Presidents Cup team. And we knew each other a bit from the TOUR before that also. Seeing him play the highest level and win the Masters was a big boost.”
Soon after Matsuyama’s magnificent win, Lahiri tweeted, “What a win! Hideki you did it! Time for all of us to step. So happy and proud of you my friend! #asiarising #gointl #Masters #greenjacket “
While Lahiri would rather have been playing at the Masters, a week off at home was a welcome respite. “It was really good week (in Texas), a solid week. Just generally, I think my game was rock solid tee to green. These last month 45 days, you know, going through that tough stretch on the Florida swing was not easy. I was hitting the ball terrible, lots of back and forth with Vijay and with videos and lots of instructions and application. All that work with videos being sent back and forth was great.”
Divecha’s mantra for Lahiri is to simplify issues. He mentioned, “He (Lahiri) would not have reached where he is if he was not good, but you should not try to do too much or too many things. That’s what we are addressing. Simplifying things.”
On how he tried to assist from India earlier than he flew out to be with Lahiri, Divecha defined, “We realized that there was nothing we could do. Without vaccines I could not travel. Once vaccination was announced, I made sure I got them to travel. From India, I was sitting on his shoulders and watching videos and using technology to guide him. I gave him a set of protocols. He would try and call me even at intervals of 15-20 minutes so we could discuss. It worked in Texas, but being there with him on the range is a different thing. For a player, being alone while working on some areas is not easy. It can be confusing if something is not working. It took time. Getting to where he was in Texas took us some time, now hopefully we can work on various things further,” added Divecha.
The RBC Heritage returns to its conventional post-Masters spot on the schedule after serving as the second occasion in final 12 months’s Return to Golf.
World No. 1 Dustin Johnson who missed the lower at the Masters, a South Carolina native, will headline the subject which additionally contains Webb Simpson, the defending champion. Collin Morikawa, present FedExCup chief Bryson DeChambeau, Will Zalatoris, who completed second at the Masters, are all additionally in the subject. Other notables teeing embody Patrick Cantlay, Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, and Daniel Berger.
The motion from PGA Tour – RBC Heritage – Day 1 will likely be LIVE on EUROSPORT and EUROSPORT HD from 00:30 Hrs (12:30 am IST) onwards on Friday, sixteenth April 2021.
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