Autumn majors put a spring in Poulter’s step
For the first time in three months, Ian Poulter boarded an aircraft yesterday, bound for Dallas, Texas, and the resumption of his day job on the PGA Tour.
During the lockdown, he kept himself trim, enjoyed home life with his family and demonstrated, not for the first time, that when it comes to schoolwork, he’ll never quite make the grade.
He laughs as he recalls a Twitter message he received recently from an old school friend. ‘Talk about a bolt from the blue,’ he says. ‘He asked me whether I’d like to see the GCSE English exam paper he collected for me — 30 years ago!
‘So he dropped it off at my dad’s house, who photographed it and sent it to me. Looking back, I’m still spelling the same words wrongly now when I’m trying to teach my own kids.
‘Just as well I was good at something else, I guess!’
The exam paper was an essay called Autobiography About My Golfing Life and it charted his progression over three years from a 27 handicap, at 14, to five.
‘Five more strokes off my handicap and I can turn pro,’ he wrote. ‘I want to get a tour card and play in all the big competitions around the world.’ And here he is, still playing in them and still full of wonder at the prospect.
‘Competition is an adrenalin rush and it’s awfully addictive,’ he says. ‘I’ve really missed it.’
It is only 8am in the Poulter household in orlando when we speak and you can hear the kids in the background, enacting a typical breakfast scene. The excitement in his voice is palpable as we move on to the majors, and the prospect of playing two of them in the autumn — the US open in September and the Masters in November — for the first time.
‘I’m buzzing about it,’ he says. ‘I’ve never won one in normal season play — I’ve not found the magic sauce yet, so let’s give it a go.
‘I’m excited when I think of the tournaments I’ve won. The Volvo Masters in 2004 was at the back end of the year. So were my wins in Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Italy and the HSBC Champions in China.
‘So it’s going to be something new, involving different thought processes and I’m up for the challenge.’
He’s also done pretty well in the autumn in the ryder Cup, of course, so does he have a theory as to why he delivers so often at the end of years?
‘I’m not sure and I don’t want to go down that route,’ he says. ‘I haven’t worked it out nor have I handed it over to someone else to study, for it might be a bit scary to find out the reason. I might have to change my schedule and start playing every September, for instance.’
Befitting his route to the top, Poulter has adopted a novel approach to the resumption. Not for him lots of rounds with the other top pros who live near the Lake Nona course adjacent to his home that has stayed open throughout the lockdown.
‘I’ve played three rounds in three months,’ he says. ‘I know lots of pros play all the time, but I’ve never prepared that way. I don’t personally get anything out of that, but I do get a lot out of practising and doing some proper swing work. Now I feel fresh, and ready to go.’
Poulter will be playing plenty of golf from now on, committing to the first four events, for starters.
‘Nothing makes an awful lot of sense at the minute, so to get back on the road will be very enjoyable,’ he says. ‘The lockdown has been great in the time it’s given me with the kids but it really is time to get back to what is going to pass as normal until we find a vaccine. It’s important for me to get off to a fast start.
‘Who knows whether the ryder Cup will be played this year, but I want to start well because, if it is, I want to be on that team.’
The 44-year-old gives a considered, nuanced view as to whether the ryder Cup should go ahead.
‘It’s the easiest thing in the world to say we should nudge it a year,’ he says. ‘As players, we all want it to go ahead with fans, because that’s how we get the most out of it, feeding off their energy.
‘But it’s not that easy, is it? You’ve got a Presidents Cup in that slot next year, you’ve got the olympics added to the mix, and then there’s the financial implications of the postponement.
‘It’s hard to give an opinion when you don’t know the full gravity of the decision.
‘What I can say is that it feels really bizarre to be ready to play in tournaments again, with so many unanswered questions about the ryder Cup.’
We’re promised the answers will be forthcoming by the end of the month. By then, Poulter will be back in full swing, still living the dream he wrote about all those years ago in his GCSE exam.