As player, self-confessed poser and now budding entrepreneur, Ian Poulter likes to put pressure on himself. He demands expectation with his public displays of confidence, and raises the stakes further with outfits that allow no hiding place. As the fate of a new business venture rests on his reputation, he has more reason than ever to win this week’s Open Championship.
He does not need telling that lifting the Claret Jug is more important than wearing it, as he has been reduced to in recent years, but success at Carnoustie would bring priceless exposure to his new clothing company, the first collection of which is to be launched in the days ahead. “I would love to win it,” he says. “For me, there is more to golf than just hitting balls at the minute. I’m seeing it from all angles. We want to try and grow the business, and winning a major would help that. It wouldn’t just be a two-minute fly-by.”
The 31-year-old has invested a sizeable chunk of his not inconsiderable earnings in Ian Poulter Design. While an account with 60 professionals’ shops represents a cautious start, the grand plan is to be more than just a retired golfer when he grows old. “Who knows what the next 20 years will hold? The aim is to grow the other side of Ian Poulter, the business side. If we can have something in clothing, something in wine, and one or two other areas, such as golf-course design, it could be interesting. The business side fascinates me. Successful business-men fascinate me.”
All of which will alarm those who fear another distraction in the making. Poulter, they say, is better known for what he wears than what he scores. The pressure that he puts on himself would be better heaped on his rivals. If he had any sense, so the rap continues, he would fold up the sequined pants, put away the powder-pink polo shirts and dispense with the tartan trews until his game is there in all its knickerbocker glory.
“So what are we saying?” he asks. “That I have to wear dull colours until I win a major? Is that how people become accepted? If that is the case, I tell you what, this golf game is going to be seriously boring. It’s not about what you have won. It’s about who you are. Paul Lawrie won The Open, but he didn’t want to make a big scene of it. You’re either someone who likes to express themselves or you’re not.”
Poulter believes that self-pub-licity brings out the best in him. He is forced into playing well, cornered by his own courage. Lowering expectation is the cop-out for those who lack his mental fortitude. “I see it as one of my biggest strengths. The best golfers in the world are mentally strong, which is why I’ve played pretty well in the last few majors. I still think that I can win a couple of them. I’m getting closer. It’s coming,” he says.
Poulter has no psychologist. He is his own mind coach, a man who admits that his bravado, which is often mistaken for arrogance, is simply a means to an end. “If you are not playing well, then obviously there is a bit of self-doubt, but that’s not the time to get down on yourself, or you will become your own worst enemy. If you keep saying that you are playing well, and saying that you are a confident person, it will rub off.”
Burdening himself with difficult targets is another device. Last year, he said he would win six titles, including a major, but managed only one. “I’ve always set my goals really high, and I’m hard on myself when I don’t perform. That’s part of my make-up. And when I do play well, I play very well, because I always want to be better.”
Even his head-turning dress sense ups the ante. Pink at The Masters, stars and stripes at the US PGA Championship: you name it, Poulter has worn it, and taken it in the neck for his trouble. “You can’t afford to be offended,” he says. “It’s all good. If you’re going to dress like that, you have to play well, otherwise you are going to get some stick, so I see it as a positive thing. I’ve played some of my best golf under pressure.”
Unlike many a first-time major winner, Poulter would lap up the attention that comes with it. He already is part and parcel of Britain’s sporting summer, when The Open takes golf to the masses, and the paparazzi don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. After the Union flag pants he was pictured in three years ago, and the Claret Jug theme of the following summer, the game is to guess what his garb will be this time.
Poulter, though, is going all sensible on us. At Carnoustie this week, the Englishman says that he will play in at least two of his company’s new outfits. Given that the club golfer tends not to go a bundle on costume dress, a subtle, more restrained number is expected on the Angus links. “It will be nothing outrageous,” he says. “That would be no way to push the collection. I’ll leave the wacky stuff for another day.”
Maybe, just maybe, his golf will be allowed to take centre stage, and his growing stature will be permitted to reveal itself. He has, after all, won seven titles on the European Tour, risen to No 31 in the world and made a habit of hanging around the lead-erboards at major championships. In four of his last seven, he has finished in the top 13. The PGA Tour, where he plays much of his golf, has been good for him. “Some people look at me as more of a clothes horse than a player, but I know what I’ve done in golf, and so do all my friends,” he says.
A major cannot come quickly enough for Poulter, whose impatience has long been a weakness, if not on the racing track, where he indulges his passion for fast cars, then in the living room, where he seems to be incapable of sitting still. It is all that Poulter can do to watch a film in its entirety. On the golf course, he walks too quickly, and he knows it. “I have to keep telling myself to slow down,” says the player who is often seen striding down the fairway 30 yards in front of his caddie. As his coach, David Leadbetter, repeatedly reminds him, the tempo of his swing is also too fast.
Poulter has his upbringing to thank for the idiosyncrasies. He didn’t have a lesson until he was 16, chose not to negotiate the amateur ranks, and was a four handicapper when he turned professional. He worked on a market stall in Stevenage, where they sold shell-suits and three T-shirts for a pound. He played golf at the local municipal, and worked for seven years as a pro shop assistant. His family could not afford to fund his golf.
What he couldn’t spend before, he is making up for now. His fleet of cars includes a Ford GT, described by Poulter as “kind of a keepsake”, various BMWs and a Cadillac Escalade. In his purpose-built home, there is every practice facility that a professional golfer could wish for, as well as the snooker table on which Ronnie O’Sullivan won the world championship. He also owns a racehorse called What A Shirtful, together with his manager and the former Arsenal player Ray Parlour.
“I used to dream about having big boy’s toys, so I’m not going to feel guilty about buying them now,” he says. “I’ve worked hard, and earned it.”
The lad from Milton Keynes, who is to be married in September, was in St Tropez last week with a few of his mates. They drove Formula One and Formula Three cars, and were invited on to the yacht of Joe Lewis, who owns the Lake Nona club in Florida. Poulter, who has a home there, and is a friend of the British billionaire, admits that his appetite for the high life has not been sated.
“If I keep playing well and giving it my all, there is lots left on the list,” he says. “Boats and aeroplanes, that kind of thing. I love treating myself. You are a long time dead.”
And yet, for all the trappings, Poulter’s will to win remains intact. Like his hero, Ian Wright, a former striker with his beloved Arsenal, he is a fan who ended up wearing the shirt, a punter who remembers what it is all about.
“When your school teacher says, ‘Don’t worry, it’s all about the taking part’, I’m sorry, but that’s total nonsense, complete and utter baloney. I will not be bringing up my boy or girl to believe that. It’s all about winning. If you are winning things, then you are enjoying yourself.”
Next Sunday, Poulter hopes that he will be having the time of his life at Carnoustie.
