Anirban Lahiri was one stroke away from pulling off one the biggest upsets THE PLAYERS Championship and PGA TOUR would have ever seen.
The 34-year-old Indian was 500-1, with reason, entering golf "fifth major" at TPC Sawgrass. Then, entering Monday's marathon finish, Lahiri was leading the tournament.
In terms of pre-tournament bets, Lahiri obviously did not attract much action. He did garner more action over the weekend, though.
According to Action Network's Darren Rovell, there was a $7,000 bet on Lahiri at 14-1 over at PointsBet on Sunday night. At FanDuel, one bettor put $9,700 down on the Indian at 10-1.
Entering THE PLAYERS, Lahiri made the cut in three of his six starts in 2022. During the PGA TOUR’s fall swing, he made just two of six. His best finish in any of those events was a T40 at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba last November.
The week before THE PLAYERS, Lahiri finished T74 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, finishing 16-over par after posting 76-82 over the weekend.
Lahiri should be relatively content with how he played the final round at 3-under to finish the tournament at 12-under. Smith, though, shot 6-under par, including four birdies in a row to start the round. It was always going to be a tall task to deny the Aussie.
If he would have held onto the lead and won THE PLAYERS, he would have been the biggest underdog to win on the PGA TOUR since Jim Herman won the Wyndham Championship in August 2020 at 600-1.
We've seen longshots like Hudson Swafford, Luke List and Tom Hoge win on TOUR in 2022, but no one would have compared to Lahiri.
