Anirban Lahiri succeeding at TPC Sawgrass after adding weight to his irons

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Golf is a game of inches. And grams, apparently.

Adding 3.5 grams of lead tape to his irons has paid big dividends for Anirban Lahiri at THE PLAYERS, where he holds the 54-hole lead as he seeks his first PGA TOUR title. Lahiri sits at 9 under par, one shot ahead of four players: Paul Casey, Sam Burns, Sebastian Munoz, Doug Ghim.

"The irons have been my weak link, and they came out much better," Lahiri said after his first-round 67. "I feel like my confidence is getting better, which is really positive."

Lahiri arrived at THE PLAYERS ranked 209th in the FedExCup. He had three missed cuts and a T74 in his last four starts, and was 24 over par in those 10 rounds. He also ranked 212th (out of 217 players) in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green this season, losing nearly a stroke per round. He's seventh this week, gaining 5.6 strokes with his approach play through the first three rounds.

"My irons were pretty much the same as when I came here seven years ago. ... (I) said, 'Let's experiment.' It can't be worse than what it is," Lahiri said. "I've been hitting it so bad. I was like, ... let's just throw some lead tape on and see what happens, because I've felt like I'm swinging good. It made a huge difference, obviously, you can see."

The added weight gave Lahiri increased face awareness and gave him a more consistent swingweight from his woods to his irons, said Rusty Estes, who worked with Lahiri on his clubs.

“He found the windows of old and spin rates of old, and it was off to the races,” Estes said. The "windows" refers to the trajectory at which the ball leaves the clubface.

Lahiri is using a Srixon ZX Utility 4-iron and Srixon Z945 irons for his 5-iron through pitching wedge this week. The Z945s were first released in Asia in 2014 and became available in North America the following year. Hideki Matsuyama was among the players to use the clubs when they first came out.

Those clubs are no longer produced, so Lahiri is trying to procure as many sets as he can. The set he's currently using has been in his bag for about six months.

"I love them, and (Srixon) were nice enough to get me one of the last few sets," Lahiri said.

He picked up another set of the irons from Graeme McDowell last week in Orlando, and promised McDowell a curry dinner in return.

"It's been a hard time for me to procure them. I think a lot of us on TOUR once we get set on how some of these irons look, we want to stick to them," Lahiri said. A slight change, even to familiar clubs, can pay big dividends. Lahiri is showing that this week.