Anirban Lahiri succeeding at TPC Sawgrass after adding weight to his irons

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Golf is a game of inches. And grams, apparently. Adding 3.5-gram weights to his irons has paid dividends for Anirban Lahiri at THE PLAYERS, where he’s the overnight leader heading into the Monday finish at TPC Sawgrass. Lahiri sits at 9 under par, one shot ahead of Tom Hoge and Harold Varner III. Lahiri is 5 under par for his first 11 holes of the suspended third round after shooting 67-73 in the opening two rounds. “I think the biggest difference was we made a change to the irons this week,” Lahiri said after his first round. “I changed the weight. The irons have been my weak link, and they came out much better. I feel like my confidence is getting better, which is really positive. “It’s really something that’s minor. I’ve added maybe 3 1/2 grams of weight to all of my irons. … These last couple of weeks, especially, we’ve been playing really tough golf courses, and you hit it 4 or 5 yards offline and you can make 6 instead of 3. And I had a lot of that happen to me. It’s frustrating when you know you’re not making bad swings and you’re not getting the results you want, so it’s equally satisfying when it comes together like this.” Lahiri is using a Srixon ZX Utility 4-iron and Srixon Z945 irons for his 5-iron through pitching wedge this week. The Z945s were first released in Asia in 2014 and became available in North America the following year. Hideki Matsuyama was among the players to use the clubs when they first came out. Lahiri used lead tape to add weight to his clubheads. The added weight gave Lahiri increased face awareness and gave him a more consistent swingweight from his woods to his irons. “He found the windows of old and spin rates of old, and it was off to the races,” said Rusty Estes, who worked with Lahiri on his clubs. Lahiri arrived at THE PLAYERS after three missed cuts and a T74 in his last four starts. He was 24 over par in those 10 rounds. He also ranked 212th (out of 217 players) in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green this season, losing nearly a stroke per round. He’s fourth this week, having gained 5.95 strokes in 47 holes. He’s also hit 36 of 47 greens this week, including 10 of 11 in the third round.

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