Pro Golf – Olympics
23-year-old LPGA regular Aditi Ashok and 33-year-old PGA Tour regular Anirban Lahiri have qualified for the Olympics a second time based on their world rankings and being the top-Indians. Anirban ranked 340 and Aditi ranked 172 on the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) and Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings (WWGR) respectively. Both played in Rio as well so the previous experience should help them deal with the pressure and expectations this time around.
In Rio Aditi started exceptionally well with rounds of 68-68-69 to be in medal contention going into the final round but finished weakly with a 76 to end 41st, while Anirban’s scores of 74-73-75-72 brought him a 57th place finish. The 3rd Indian qualifier for Rio, SSP Chawrasia shot 71-71-69-78 to record 50th place but could not make the cut for Tokyo, having played a very restricted schedule due to Covid travel restrictions.
There’s a possibility that Udayan Mane, India’s second-best ranked player at 346th may get confirmed as well due to some late withdrawals by other qualified players.
The Men’s Olympic Golf Tournament will be held July 29 to August 1 and the Women’s from August 4-7 at the hallowed old Kasumigaseki Country Club, 35 miles outside Tokyo. The competition once again will be held only in an individual format with no team competition and all 60 players in men and 60 in women will play all four rounds with no cut being applied.
India Golf Weekly wishes them all the luck in Japan and hope they find good form which will certainly do good for the sport’s popularity in India.