THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 9, 2021

Anirban Lahiri

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. What does this opportunity mean for you to get your fifth appearance at THE PLAYERS Championship?

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: It's nice. It's nice to be back. I didn't realize it's been, it's my fifth time back. I haven't, I really like this golf course, I love the way it sets up and I feel like it's one of those tracks where I can do really well. My record doesn't show that though.

Q. How is your game at the moment?

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: It's been a little patchy, up and down, but I think it's trending back in the right direction. I have a couple of things that I've been working on and they seem to be falling into place, so it's all about putting it together now.

Q. Through your time here previously at Sawgrass where are the areas in your game that you need to be on top of to play well here?

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Well, obviously in three of those previous appearances was in May, with different weather. I played in 2018 -- well or -- not 2018, I played in '19, I didn't play in '20. But it's going to be slightly different in terms of the temperatures and the wind. If anything I think this is probably a better wind for my game style. So the one thing I haven't done as well in the past is probably hit as many fairways as you need to. On the weekend the greens are going to get really firm and fast, we all know that, so it's going to be critical to come in from the short grass to really control the ball and that's going to be my mine focus this week.

Q. So last year THE PLAYERS Championship was cancelled. The first event, obviously. And then subsequently leading to a three-month shut down. How do you reflect on the past year and how did that impact your game, if at all?

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Well I think it's been a year now, a full circle pretty much since COVID struck the golfing world. For me it was, there was a lot of good that came out of it. I did get a lot done in India, I went back for the Indian Open, which was the week after THE PLAYERS last year. And ended up being a good thing for me, because I got a lot of time at home with my coach and just managed to reassemble all the parts that were kind of getting a little rickety.

So I've felt like my game is a lot more solid when I came back and I tried to build on that momentum. Obviously it's also nice to kind of see where we have reached one year from that break. There was a lot of chaos, there's still a lot of moving parts, but we're getting it done, the TOUR's moving on and doing a fantastic job, so now I feel very lucky, very fortunate to be doing what I'm doing, to be here with this great opportunity to start playing golf at the biggest stage again.

Q. There are obviously so many different players who have won at this event, so many different kinds of golfers, do you think that it's anybody's tournament to win this week or do you think that there's --

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Yeah, I mean, all the guys who have won here previously have driven the ball really well and putted really well. I think those are the two things that are going to be really, really important. Again, I don't mean to say that it's easy from the fairways in or easy getting into the greens, but it's all about putting yourself in position and obviously you got to putt well. Webb won here, putted great. Everyone's been a high-level ball-striker and they have had a good putting week. So you have to have all the departments firing and also that's why it's not so heavily dominated by someone who hits it miles or who has a really exceptional short game, you got to do everything good and you got to drive and putt well more than anything else.