Late bogeys push Anirban Lahiri down at Shell Houston Open in Texas

Humble (Texas): Anirban Lahiri started out on his long journey on the PGA Tour at the Shell Houston Open in a rather humbling manner, ending the day one at two-over 74.
Starting with a birdie on the 10th, his first hole of the day, the World No. 33 Lahiri parred the next seven holes to stay under-par before encountering his first disappointment in the form of a double bogey on the 17th.

Thereafter two other birdies back-to-back on fifth and sixth and three bogeys, two of them in last three holes saw him finish at two-over 74 for the first day. It put the winner of Malaysian and Hero Indian Open winner way behind at 117th place three shots behind the projected cut. The leader was Scott Piercy, who blazed the course with a nine-under 63 and opened a two-shot lead over German Alex Cejka and long-hitting JB Holmes. Piercy at one stage five birdies in a row. 

Phil Mickelson, Luke Guthrie, Charles Howell III and Houston?s Shawn Stefani each shot a 66 and trail Piercy by three strokes. Lahiri is due to play his first Masters next week and is looking forward to a series of starts over the next few months in the US. "The good thing is being in the position that I am right now (World?s Top-50) is that I'll probably get into all four Majors and the WGC. So that's eight events, eight really good events to be playing in. Honestly, if you have a good run in these eight, that should be good enough.

"After Augusta I play RBC Heritage because they do have a category for the people in the Top 50. I'm going to go down to Hilton Head and play there. Then I am probably going to take a week off and then I play the WGC in San Francisco, which is again off my world rankings. The week following that is The Players, which again has a Top 50 world ranking."