IAN POULTER IS... EUROPE’S REDUCER
‘The Americans say that I’m the worst player to lose to ... I take pride in that’
Ian Poulter was playing a skins game earlier this week. You know, just for fun. Hole by hole, against some of his european team-mates, probably a few quid on it. nothing much. except Poulter was losing. His pride was hurt, more than his pocket.
By the time he got to the 17th he hadn’t won a hole. the caddies were beginning to give him a bit of stick.
Jokes about duck eggs, due to his big fat zero. Quacking noises as he walked to the tee. and then he turned up. You remember. Him.
It was as if Poulter suddenly remembered where he was, and flicked a switch. ‘He birdied 17 and holed a bunker shot on the last,’ said Justin rose, ‘and you know he’s in his element. He just needs a spark.’ Martin Kaymer put it even more succinctly. ‘When you see Poulter at the ryder Cup, he’s different,’ he confirmed.
asked if he knew what Kaymer meant, Poulter was clear. He was a different man in a team environment, he said. It reminded him of his days as a youth footballer. one imagines Poulter wouldn’t entirely mind it if for one week, golf could become a contact sport. that is what he brings to the competition.
the equivalent of the little reducer tackle, the one that tests the mettle of an opponent. See how much they want it, says the manager, and this is what Poulter does. He can spot the weakness in a rival; he pounces at that moment when he loses heart. He did this with Webb Simpson at Medinah two years ago.
Mostly, intimidation on a golf course is icily uncommunicative. It tends to involve sinking putts in frozen silence. Poulter is perhaps the first to capture the physicality of the rough-house sports, without quite taking Keegan Bradley out at the knee. Bug- eyed, screaming, every muscle tensed, lost in the moment, capable of anything.
He has won 12 of his last 13 ryder Cup games and averages 0.8 points per match. Colin Montgomerie is a legend of european ryder Cup golf. His average is 0.65. Seve Ballesteros, the father of this european revival, averaged 0.54. Poulter, of course, is paired with Monty’s fellow Scot Stephen Gall a c her in t hi s morning’s fourballs, surely an inspiration for the ryder rookie.
I t would be i mpossible to replicate what Poulter brings to the ryder Cup in the other 103 weeks of the two-year cycle. If Poulter could play like this permanently he would be a major-winning golfer to rival rory McIlroy. the intensity Poulter will radiate and inspire on the tee at
Gleneagles today is simply too draining to be bottled and turned to his advantage as an individual over four days. No strokeplay event could be won teetering on the brink of madness as Poulter does in Ryder Cup week. He is the embodiment of the ferocious team spirit that has driven Europe through its modern era of dominance: the heir to the mantle of Ballesteros, the first to take the fight to America with more than just a three iron.
‘When I’m part of a team it brings out a side of me that people don’t often get to see,’ ee,’ Poulter said. ‘I loved my foot- ball as a kid, , and I’m reliving those moments as a golfer at the Ryder Cup.
‘I played football back then like I play y golf right now.
‘I’m one of those ose players that wants ants to help out in a team environment, too.oo. Even if it’s a guy like Martin Kaymer or Lee Westwood, I’m someone that is proud to put an arm around someone, or pump them up to get them going.
‘Intimidation? Matt Kuchar said I’m the worst player to lose to and I take pride in that. I have inflicted a lot of punishment and it comes from delivering, holing putts, putting a lot of blue on the board. I’ll stand tall.
‘I’m proud to put the shirt on, to be visible, to show emotion, and if that’s intimidating and hard to take I’ll try to make sure it continues.
‘My record in the Ryder Cup is exceptional, in strokeplay tournaments it isn’t, but I think the emotion that goes through you when you hole a putt, from the very first day of the Ryder Cup, is like the emotion you have on the Sunday of a big tournament.
‘They all feel like tournament winning putts, and you sink a lot of them in a three-day spell. By the end, it feels like you’ve had more wins than you could amount in your professional lifetime. That’s why it is so physically and mentally draining.
‘You go through emotions that you just do not face week in and week out. But that inspires me. I embrace it. To be compared to Seve or Colin Montgomerie is an absolute honour. We’ve had some tremendous players, but we always refer back to Seve. He meant so much.
‘He had a vision to overturn the red, white and blue and tried to instill that in his teams. We still want to play for him and stand for what he was trying to do.’
MEMORIES of Medinah 2012 are still fresh in a lot of minds, but images of Poulter stand out. After Bubba Watson had set the tone for day one by encouraging the home crowd to cheer throughout his tee shot, Poulter took up the challenge the following day.
He could have merely whipped up a chorus of American boos, instead he was roared on by a strong European contingent as he struck his ball down the middle. At the end of the day he recorded five consecutive birdies to offer hope of a European revival, miraculously realised in the singles. Poulter won his, obviously. He has never lost on the last day at this tournament.
‘I think what Ian does with his reaction to making a putt is that he looks around and brings everybody in,’ said Rose, ‘yet he’s got this amazing ability to shut everything out at the same time. It’s his eyes. If you watch them, he’s still in the zone, he’s not really taking it in at all. If you watch him putt, he’s very focused, running up and down the line. He channels in, which is the only way to play under pressure. You cannot afford to be looking around, to see everything that is going on. Ian has this great ability to switch in, switch out, switch in, switch out.’
Even more than McIlroy, the world No 1, Poulter is Europe’s prize scalp.
Tom Watson talked of targeting him, even ahead of McIlroy, and it was no accident that he was chosen as the final European player to speak publicly before this morning’s tee-off. European preparations extend to the running order of media appearances and with all 12 team members scheduled to speak it was a deliberate policy by captain Paul McGinley to leave Poulter’s address to last. He did not disappoint. Poulter refused to be drawn on Phil Mickelson’s attempt to get beneath European skins two days ago, but he still exuded a powerful sense of determination.
His autobiography is out later this year, and a final chapter detailing Ryder Cup defeat would be an unfortunately dispiriting conclusion. Not that he requires further motivation.
‘I don’t look to see if the other players are intimidated by me,’ Poulter said. ‘They are close by, but if I’m doing my job, it’s not as if I need to look.’ And almost imperceptibly, he reverted to reducer mode. Team America was again in his sights. ‘I know what they will think when I hole that putt,’ Poulter murmured. ‘That I do know.’