Indian duo ready to turn on the heat in EurAsia Cup golf

Kuala Lumpur, March 25 (IANS): Indian young guns Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar will be aiming to pull the rug from under the feet of Team Europe when the inaugural EurAsia Cup golf begins Thursday.

Team Asia will be led by playing captain Thongchai Jaidee, Asian Tour No.1 Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Prayad Marksaeng, Koumei Oda, Hideto Tanihara, Kim Hyung-sung, Siddikur Rahman and Nicholas Fung besides the Indian youngsters.

Lahiri hopes the hot and humid conditions at the Glenmarie Golf and Country Club’s Garden course will give the home side an edge over Team Europe, which is skippered by Miguel Angel Jimenez.

“We need to turn the microwave up! We are used to these conditions. We play most of our golf in Asia and grew up playing on these grasses. The conditions are in our favour and the people in Asia are behind us. We’ve got a lot of things going for us and hopefully we can snowball all those factors into a win,” said Lahiri.

Bhullar and Lahiri have won a combined eight Asian Tour titles in their burgeoning careers and knows that victory for Team Asia at the Ryder Cup-style tournament will enhance their growing reputation.

“This is a different kind of format. I think it is a great sense of achievement for the 10 guys who qualified for Team Asia. We are here to represent the continent. We have been trying to gel together and we have a lot of combinations in the fourball and foursomes format. Now we are just waiting for Thursday to come,” said Bhullar, a five-time Asian Tour winner.

Lahiri added: “We’ve played a lot of team golf together, but like Thongchai rightly pointed out, in juniors and amateurs events, you don’t really play foursomes and fourballs so this is a new format for me. The team has been working hard together and when the matches begin, we will all be hoping to create an upset.”

The format of play for the EurAsia Cup will see five fourball matches being played on the first day (March 27, Thursday) followed by five foursomes matches on day two (March 28, Friday) and 10 singles matches on the final day (March 29, Saturday) at Glenmarie’s Garden course.