PGA Championships: Anirban Lahiri tied 15th with impressive 70

Kohler Wisconsin Anirban Lahiri managed to hang in for an impressive round of twounder 70 and a tied 15th place despite the wind that picked when he was on back and costed him a double bogey on the 18th on the first day of the PGA Championships at Whistling StraitsLahiri who had six birdies three on either side of the turn also had two bogeys on the 11th and 14th and a disappointing double bogey on the closing 18th which played as the hardest hole on the courseHigher winds greeted those with afternoon tee times and resulted in scoring differences between morning and afternoon groups There were 25 subpar rounds from among morning groups and only 13 among those in afternoon The morning saw 12 rounds in 60s and only two from the afternoonLahiri winner of Malaysian Open and Hero Indian Open this season and currently ranked No 53 in the world agreed the conditions were tough out there but said I am pretty happy with the way I played I missed a few short putts but I also made a couple of long onesLahiris card of 70 saw him tied with eight other including Asias only Major winner Y E Yang of Korea Lahiri opened with a flourish with a birdie on the first and added two more on the fourth and seventh to turn in threeunder He added a fourth birdie on 10th at which point he was very briefly even in top5 on the leaderboard His first bogey on 11th was quickly compensated by abirdie on par3 12th He again dropped a shot on 14th but picked a birdie on par5 16th where he even had an 18footer for an eagleFollowing a par on 17th where he hit a great approach shot Lahiri was fourunder at the 18th tee But he went onto the fairway bunker which was rather hard and ended with a double bogeyOn the front nine where Lahiri was threeunder he also missed a 14footer for birdie on second a ninefooter on par3 third and on the apr5 fifth he hit his third shot to 10 feet two inches but missed the birdie putt However he did hole a neat 23footer on par3 seventh and earlier holed another on fourth from almost 35 feet both for birdiesOn the back nine Lahiri missed an eightfooter for birdie on 11th and bogeyed the par4 when he went into the bunker and was not able to roll in a 2528 footer for par Then came the final double on 18thFrankly I played pretty good but I gave away too many shots on the back nine The last especially was disappointing I found the fairway but it was playing hard But I feel if Ican keep this going for the rest of the week it should be good he added He admitted he missed a few short putts but quickly added If I can keep hitting within 15 feet or so I will eventually hole a few moreSitting atop the leaderboard was Dustin Johnson who made good use of the morning conditions as long as he could Playing in his sixth PGA Championship Johnson fired an openinground 6underpar 66 and grabbed the firstround leadThe 66 was Johnsons secondlowest score in a PGA Championship and best in an opening round Starting on the back side Johnson birdied his initial two holes and eagled the 573yard par5 16th which was his seventh hole of the morning He capped off his round by sinking a 10footer for par on No 9Tiger Woods putting woes saw him finish with threeover 75 in tied86th place He will need a strong second round to make the weekend Jordan Spieth winner of Masters and US Open this year and Rory McIlroy the defending champion both carded oneunder 71 each and were tied for 24th place Spieth had two birdies and one bogey and parred the entire front stretch while McIlroy returning from an ankle injury had four birdies against three bogeysEight players were at 4under 68 and two shots off Johnsons 66 They were Jason Day Harris English Russell Henley J B Holmes Matt Jones Matt Kuchar Danny Lee and Scott PiercyMartin Kaymer who claimed the first of his two major championships at Whistling Straits in 2010 opened with a 70 that included a double bogey on his final hole the ninth Yet Kaymer was off to a better start than in 2010 when he shot a firstround 72 Kaymer is currently tied for 15th place