Hindustan Times (Amritsar)

PGA Tour home, but Asia still priority

- ANIRBAN LAHIRI

It’s a lot of distance to travel from the US to India for a week. But this week, I am here because of the Hero Indian Open, my national Open which I won in 2015. I want to win it again.

When I fly back to America I won’t be leaving until the middle of July. Hopefully, I’ll get into The Masters. If I don’t, I will look at my schedule and throw open a window on where I work again.

There is a conscious decision to cut down on travel. After 18 months in the US, it’s no longer new to me. On any new tour, it takes time because you’re playing new events.

I think I’ve reached the point where the PGA Tour feels like my home tour. I’m not saying that the Asian Tour is not. It will always be primary to me, but it also feels like my home tour when I play a PGA Tour event.

If you can make something that you are uncomforta­ble with your comfort zone, that’s progress. Like at the PGA National in Palm Beach, Florida, I am a member at the Jack Nicklaus Club, and my home is right there.

So I was ‘home’ and sleeping in my own bed, as opposed to a hotel.

As for other things, I am conscious of approachin­g a few milestones in my life and career.

For instance, it is going to be 10 years since I turned a pro and I am soon going to turn 30. But right now I don’t think there is any time to look back.

Until I’m ready to retire, I won’t look back. I don’t forget, I draw on my experience­s. It’s like a cycle. I was a rookie out here in 2008, and I felt like a rookie in America again in 2015.

I have a lot of golf behind me and I look at what I want to do over the next eight to ten years.

I intend to play there and be competitiv­e. I intend to get into more Majors and stay in the top 15. So, there is a lot of work to do. But right now it is the Indian Open.

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