Poulter plunges from sublime to ridiculous as rejuvenation stalls
IAN POULTER’S stirring return to form at the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship came to a crushing end yesterday, with a brutal quarter-final defeat against American Kevin Kisner.
Breathtakingly good before lunch in beating former Open Champion Louis Oosthuizen, Poulter was bewilderingly bad thereafter during an 8&6 hammering that came complete with a cruel sucker punch.
Needing to reach the semi-finals to pick up sufficient world ranking points to move into the top 50 and earn a last-minute invitation to the Masters next week, Poulter is expected to occupy 51st place when the latest list is released tomorrow.
He has entered the Houston Open this week, but would need to win it to get to Augusta.
Poulter’s match against Oosthuizen was the best seen all day. With the miracle putter from the 2012 Ryder Cup back in the bag it was like Medinah all over again as he delivered a blistering performance. Given he had less than 40 minutes to enjoy it before taking on Kisner, perhaps it wasn’t surprising he was flat after lunch.
How do you go from a fabulous morning featuring eight birdies and no bogeys to a shambolic afternoon with not a single gain and plenty of silly errors?
It might not have helped that he was told at lunchtime he was definitely in the Masters following his morning triumph, only to be informed ten minutes later he would need to win another match. But, while understandably annoyed, he rightly did not cling to it as an excuse for his poor golf.
‘I’m not sure I’ve got an explanation,’ he said. ‘It was just rubbish against Kevin, I never put up a fight at all. It was such a shame after all the good stuff.’
Once the obvious disappointment at going so agonisingly close to making it to Augusta wears off, hopefully he will be able to draw on the positives from four successive victories.
Clearly, Tiger Woods is not the only 42-year-old hellbent on making a big comeback this season.
Poulter was the last golfer from the UK standing, after Tyrrell Hatton lost his last-16 match against Australian Cameron Smith, who in turn then lost to Alex Noren.
The sole European in this morning’s semi-finals alongside three Americans, the Swede has done wonders for his hopes of a Ryder Cup debut, and will all but confirm his place in the team with two more victories today.
He will start out this morning against Kisner, a player whose quietly effective all-round game mirrors his own.
There’s plenty at stake in the other semi-final as well, as Justin Thomas will go to the Masters as the new world No1 if he beats the reborn Bubba Watson and makes it to the final.