OUR ALPHA MAIL
Pitted against a world No.1 sinking huge putts & hitting monster drives, he never took a backwards step... because Postman Poults ALWAYS delivers
WHEN Dustin Johnson was holing putts the length of the Champs Elysees, he did not flinch.
When the world No.1 was blasting it beyond him, he did not waiver. When red began to splatter the scoreboard, he did not shift his stare from the task ahead. Ian Poulter, the postman. This was a landslide triumph, a guillotining near Versailles, but for the anxious hour when memories of great Ryder Cup comebacks stirred, Europe needed strength of will.
And in this arena, no one has a stronger will than Poulter.
No one gets the Ryder Cup quite like Poulter.
Sure, even if he had not played the final few holes with nerveless excellence that defied pressure, Thomas Bjorn’s team would have still reclaimed the trophy. But Poulter, taking out an opponent ranked as the best player on the planet right now, somehow symbolised what this European team was all about.
Told they were the underdogs, up against a phalanx of Major winners, facing a resurgent Greatest Of All Time, they never once looked intimidated. Not even when they lost the first three
matches on day one, certainly not when the Americans briefly threatened to take it long into the afternoon.
They summoned the spirit of Poulter, the spirit that says individual accomplishments mean nothing in this battle, rankings are irrelevant, reputations there to be shredded.
The spirit that drove Poulter when his career, through injury and rotten form, looked to be going only one way less than two years ago.
When one poll of American professionals was conducted, a thumping majority named Poulter.
The question? Which European golfer would you most like to take down in a Ryder Cup?
After seeing him dressed as a postbox in the champagne-soaked delirium, that is unlikely to alter.
When Jordan Spieth holed the winning putt against Poulter and Jon Rahm on Friday, he beat his chest, tormenting the Englishman.
Poulter laughed last and laughed loudest.
And cried, cried when his young son Luke cried. The image of the two hugging and weeping was one of many that will long be remembered from the victory scenes.
Poulter has a second family for this week and they were his teammates. The way these players spoke about each other and interacted was genuinely passionate and it simply did not feel or sound the same in American ranks. But togetherness
does not find fairways, hit greens or hole putts – maximising your talent in the most psychologically demanding situations does.
That is what Poulter did on this final day, that is what so many of the Europeans did over all three days. When Johnson canned his third monster putt of the round on the 16th hole, Poulter did not break stride and played the final two holes immaculately to record the 15th point of his Ryder Cup career.
From that moment, European success was inevitable, as inevitable as Poulter one day captaining the team.
This was his sixth Ryder Cup and this fifth time in the winners’ enclosure has to be his sweetest.
He needed a wild card pick and, now 42, playing in another home edition looks an unlikely scenario.
Fourteen years ago, Luke was pictured as a baby, sleeping next to the trophy after Poulter’s winning debut at Oakland Hills.
Since then, his dad has put an indelible stamp on the history of this European team.
And for him, final winning days cannot have come any better.
The postman delivered again.