World Cup of Golf:Anirban top Indian

Bhullar was disappointed he did not feature prominently in the World Cup especially after he had high hopes following his strong outing in the Australian Masters in the previous week.

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November 24, 2013. Anirban Lahiri was the top Indian at Melbourne at the end of an exciting World Cup of Golf tournament. He finished tied 25th with a one over 287. Lahiri, also tied with greats like Vijay Singh and Nicholas Colsaerts had a bit of rough 10-18th holes with four bogeys that set him back considerably. The 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th were holes rather unkind to his expectations. The front nine had been blemish free with three birdies on the count as well.

Gaganjeet Bhullar’s
 game collapsed and he finished at the bottom of the leader board with a total of 306. He battled to his week’s best with a 71 but finished last in the 60-man field, a week after he enjoyed a top-10 at the Australian Masters which was also played over the iconic Royal Melbourne layout.

 

The 27-year-old Lahiri, a three-time Asian Tour winner, said: “It’s been a very good week, a very positive week. My first time out here, a big learning curve on new conditions and very different to what we play on.”

 

“To represent India for the first time as a professional was fantastic. I hope to play in more World Cups as there are a lot of good Indians out there. We have to continue to play a high level of golf to keep myself in the top few to get selected for events like this. I hope there will be many more to come

 

“This is what we work towards to, to get to the World Cup and the Majors. I look forward to playing in more events like this.”

 

Bhullar was disappointed he did not feature prominently in the World Cup especially after he had high hopes following his strong outing in the Australian Masters in the previous week.

 

“Last week and this week, the ball striking has been absolutely the same. It was all down to the putting, the ball is not going into the hole, just taking extra shots to get in the hole. This week was totally different,” lamented Bhullar, a four-time winner in Asia.

 

“Last week, I played really solid and thought I would repeat it this week. I think it was a lot to do with the overconfidence from last week’s top-10. I sat down with my family over dinner last night and we were thinking about what went wrong. A lot of key factors which I thought would not disturb me got me. It’s a good lesson. I will have to be more patient and not be result oriented and keep to the process and routine.”

 

The tenacious Siddikur, currently third on the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit, raised loud cheers around the 18th green when he holed a magical shot from out of the greenside bunker for a birdie and a closing 73 and 298 total.

 

“It was nice to hole out from the bunker,” said the Bangladeshi. “It’s a great course, which I’ve never played anything like this in my life before and also the greens were really so different. I couldn’t putt but I’m glad I played in this World Cup. My game is still there, I’m hitting it good but I just couldn’t deal with the putts.

 

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