B o u n c i n g Back Poulter’s year-end career-world-ranking chart
160 77 76 42 35 59 34 22 26 12 11 16 12 12 27 56
American golfer Brian Gay, also on a major medical, discovered a discrepancy in the distribution of Fedexcup points, which stemmed from the PGA Tour changing how it awarded them in 2017. The PGA Tour reviewed the error when Gay alerted officials and granted Poulter a PGA Tour card for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, Poulter also made a dramatic overhaul of his team a few weeks before the Players Championship.
He split with his management at IMG in favour of a return to his former agent Paul Dunkley, who had managed the first 21 years of Poulter’s career. He also closed his golf clothing line, IJP Design, and changed accountants and his book-keeping team. “You have to hit rock bottom to make some changes,” says Poulter. “It’s hard to fire people, but it had to be done.”
With a weight off his shoulders, Poulter shared second place at TPC Sawgrass and began his 12-month march back to the winners’ circle. Poulter insists he is not in the midst of a career renaissance, rather a return to the level of golf he knows he can play.
“If you look back over the run I’ve had, certain things were out of my hands, which I’ve corrected. I fixed everything I needed to fix off the golf course and was able to concentrate on the golf course,” he says.
“I refocused, simplified my life and because of that, everything on the course started to improve.”
At home on the lake
Although a Ryder Cup hero, Poulter has crafted an admirable career in the US since relocating his family to Lake Nona, in the Orlando area of Florida, from Buckinghamshire in 2004. He has won two elite WGC events and amassed more than $23million in prize money on the PGA Tour alone.
Poulter says wife Katie and the couple’s four children feeling settled at their Lake Nona base has been integral to his PGA Tour success. Lake Nona also counts Annika Sorenstam, Graeme Mcdowell and Henrik Stenson among its community.
“They have been settled since we moved there years ago, so that’s always been part and parcel of it [touring golf],” Poulter, an adoring father who regularly documents rounds of golf with his kids, says of his family. “You need to have a good, stable family life to play well on the golf course – that’s never been any different from day one.
“We’ve always been happy; when we were in the UK we were in a nice place, and now we’re in a nice place in Lake Nona. I’ve always had my family behind me, which has been the rock for who I am today.”
Poulter Down Under
GM met with Poulter at another golf destination where he feels at home – Australia’s iconic Melbourne sandbelt. Poulter has a rich history on a stretch of golf courses just outside Melbourne, which includes the worldrenowned Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Victoria Golf Club and Metropolitan.
He held off US Open winner Geoff Ogilvy to capture the Australian Masters at Victoria GC in 2011, before a stellar title defence saw him finish second behind 2012 winner Adam Scott. It was why Poulter was desperate to return to Melbourne.
Several months before the World Cup of Golf, Poulter begged higherranked countryman Tyrrell Hatton to select him for England in the two-man team event. The duo combined well to finish eighth.
“It’s the best golf on the planet; I’ve said it many times,” Poulter declares of the sandbelt. “When people ask me about my favourite golf courses in the world I tell them Victoria GC, Kingston Heath, Royal Melbourne and Metropolitan now, too. This is a very, very lucky part of the golf world.”
As a past champion of the now defunct Australian Masters, Poulter laments there is no longer an annual tournament on the sandbelt. However, his friend and legendary Australian former test cricketer, Shane Warne, told Golf Monthly of his grand plan to create a sandbelt celebrity Pro-am he hopes will rival the European Tour’s Dunhill Links Championship.
“I think the pros always take the opportunity to come down and play the sandbelt when they can,” Warne, a Dunhill regular, says. “I want to start a tournament called the ‘Shane Warne Invitational Sandbelt Classic’ and I’ll invite some of my (celebrity) friends from around the world to come play.”
“It’s difficult to add a tournament to a busy schedule because it’s not about the courses, it’s about the sponsors,” Poulter says. “But Melbourne has the courses, that’s for sure. If the sponsors are there and it’s a great tournament, then I could play.”