Lahiri hopes to reduce errors despite tough conditions in Torrey Pines

Anirban Lahiri loves playing at the Torrey Pines, one of Tiger Woods' favourite courses. But Woods, recovering from another procedure on his back and is not teeing up this week.

Meanwhile, Lahiri, who looked set for Top-10 finish at the Sony Open but crashed to a none-too-happy final round and finished down before missing the cut despite a solid first round 68 at American Express is hoping for a reversal in fortunes.

"Torrey Pines is always nice to come back to, especially on a sunny day. It's been freezing cold. We had severe winds, and the golf course was closed on Monday because of the winds dangerous conditions. But I got a nice practice and today,” said Lahiri, playing his seventh year on the PGA TOUR.

“Definitely some lessons to learn from the last couple of weeks. I've mixed too many mistakes with some good golf in there. I am trying to build on the positives, trying to clean up on the big mistakes. There's been too many doubles and too many unforced errors, so of course, this week is a different kind of golf course altogether.”

Lahiri added that the course, which will be the venue for the US Open this year, is set up tough. “We're going to be back here for the US Open, in about 5-6 months. This one right now isn't set up very differently as there's almost four 4-5 inches of rough. With no galleries this week even in practice round, it took 2-3 minutes to find any golf ball that kind of missed the fairway, so it's severe. It's quite severe, so I think all focus is going to be on keeping it on the fairways and kind of controlling it in the wind.”

It is once again a star-studded field that includes Rory McIlroy, who flew in from the Middle East and there is Korea’s star Si Woo Kim who wants to keep the momentum going. Kim ended a nearly four-year winless run last week at American Express, and McIlroy was third in Abu Dhabi, where his results have been fabulous, but a win has eluded him in 11 starts.

The field also includes title holder Marc Leishman, four-time PGA TOUR winner Xander Schauffele and World No. 2 Jon Rahm.

Apart from Kim and Lahiri, the other Asian stars in this week’s field include Korea’s Sung Kang, Seung Yul Noh, Sungjae Im, K.H. Lee and Byeong Hun An, who finished top-10 in last week, Japanese duo Satoshi Kodaira of Japan and Hideki Matsuyama and China’s Xinjun Zhang.