Anirban Lahiri stumbles to 80 in third round of Palmer Invitational

India golfer Lahiri had a woeful outing in the third round of the ongoing Arnold Palmer Invitational. The veteran golfer registered his worst card of the ongoing season, after scoring a miserable eight-over 80 to fall to end up at the bottom of the rankings table at 70th place on the third day.

The hard and firm greens were hard on all the players and not just Lahiri, as many players were finding it difficult to score well. Lahiri, who started at one-under for 36 holes, plummeted to seven-over, and will hope to get some confidence back in the final round of the tournament ahead of the PLAYERS Championships next week at TPC Sawgrass.

Lahiri hit nine of the 14 fairways and 10 of the 18 greens, but on the latter, he ended up missing a whole lot of putts inside 10 feet and much less, just like many others in the competition. The back nine was tougher with a birdie on 13th coming as the only consolation. He doubled 15th and 17th, which meant he had three doubles, and bogeyed 14th and 18th for a five-over back stretch.

Meanwhile, Matt Fitzpatrick emerged as the leader at the end of day three ahead of a group of fellow Europeans who occupied the top half of the leaderboard. On a course, where avoiding bogeys was a tough job, Fitzpatrick did very well without any dropped shots. He shot a flawless 5-under 67 and led by a shot over Rory McIlroy (66) going into the final round.