{{ubiquityData.prevArticle.description}}
{{ubiquityData.nextArticle.description}}
R&A officials doubted whether Ian Poulter would want to speak to the press after he had finished his Thursday round at the Open with a missed putt and a 2-over-par 72. The Englishman probably didn’t want to speak to members of the Fourth Estate but he came just the same and, for a minute or so, chuntered away about frittered shots and how mad he was at himself.
There was a momentary pause after someone noted he was showing fewer signs of irritation than he might have done in the past. A bemused Poulter was not about to issue a denial. “I can still be a bit of a so-and-so,” he said, “only I’ve learned to temper my ways.” (To explain a certain lack of accuracy, “so-and-so” is simply a milder version of the old-style Poulter expression which escaped his lips.)
In revisiting my notes to recall what came next in that little interview, I found just a couple of words – Luke 17 – on the next line. Where, I wondered, did this biblical reference come into things? Then the penny dropped. Poulter had moved on to talk about his 17-year-old son, Luke, and how it was because of him he had decided to change his behaviour.
“I see certain things that Luke does on the course and sometimes I suspect that he might have seen me doing the same at some point,” Poulter said. “I want to be a decent influence on him. It’s taken a long time but I’ve learned that getting angry or too fiery doesn’t do any good.”
In which connection, European Ryder Cup captain Pádraig Harrington can rest assured Poulter has not turned into the “cowrin, tim’rous beastie” with panic in his “breastie” in Robert Burns’s poem, To a Mouse. He is as passionate as ever about the match and was already revving up for Whistling Straits when he spoke to Sky Sports Golf commentator Nick Dougherty at the start of the year. “I want to be there, I want to help the team, I want to be in the team room, and I want to be a part of that team,” Poulter said.
Though your average golfer thinks Poulter is dripping with majors (he in fact has none) as well as loot, he was rather short of results for his own liking at that stage of this season. Not now. He has three top-30 finishes in this year’s majors, along with a share of fourth place in the Scottish Open where, with a closing 63, he finished a shot out of a play-off.
He had splashed out £100,000 on tickets for himself and Luke to fly down and watch the Euro 2000 final at Wembley that night but, with European Tour regulations calling for a potential winner to remain on site, the only live football both ended up seeing was England losing the penalty shoot-out to Italy. (You have to wonder whether Poulter remained his new gentlemanly self in front of those who refused to let him into the stadium any earlier.)
Pádraig Harrington said from the start of this Ryder Cup campaign that Ian Poulter would be at Whistling Straits, “always assuming he still has two legs.”
At the following week’s Open Championship, Poulter followed his Thursday 72 with a 66, a 71 and a 68 to finish on 3-under 277 in a share of 26th place. When you tack all of the above to his record 72 percent winning tally in six Ryder Cups, he cannot but be among Harrington’s dozen.
Harrington said from the start of this Ryder Cup campaign that Poulter would be at Whistling Straits, “always assuming he still has two legs.” To many another, however, it is Poulter’s eyes which are the killers. Only Tiger Woods can stare a ball into the hole as Poulter does, though even Woods could not do it to order as well as Poulter in a Ryder Cup context.
As a golfer, Harrington will see something of himself in Poulter. Neither is in the same super-talented league as a Seve Ballesteros, a Sergio García, a Jon Rahm, or a Rory McIlroy, but both have had a capacity for hard work which has wrought wonders for themselves and their families. Intriguingly, Paul Dunkley, Poulter’s manager and friend for the past 25 years, says Poulter nowadays arranges his schedule to fit in with his son’s junior golf arrangements.
That day at the Open, the conversation was more and more about Luke’s golf rather than Poulter’s own, and how the young player is starting at the University of Florida in 2022. Poulter would have seen a couple of nasty little tweets about his son taking a scholarship off someone more needy, and he is the first to admit his son is in a privileged position: “Luke may have new sneakers and a new car, but he respects what he has. Kate (Poulter’s wife) has seen to that. She’s done a great job with all four kids.
“Luke’s playing better golf than I was at his age and he hits it miles further than I do. He’s improved a lot over the last 18 months and now he’s got this opportunity to develop into a really good golfer.
“It’s fairy-tale stuff what he’s going to get at Uni in the way of gyms and plunge pools and one-to-one coaching.”
Poulter never had any of that in the days when he was working as an assistant professional at Chesfield Downs in Hertfordshire and was made to pay a green fee if he wanted to play a round of golf. Because of that miserly attitude, Poulter found himself another assistant’s position at Leighton Buzzard Golf Club where he could play for free when he was not selling Mars bars, putting spikes in member’s shoes and coaching junior members.
Does Ian feel a tad envious of Luke?
“No, not at all,” came his tongue-in-cheek response. “I loved putting in those spikes.”
Top: Ian Poulter sees a lot of himself in his son, Luke.
E-Mail LEWINE