GOLFER Ian Poulter finished second in the British Open championship at Royal
Birkdale last Sunday, pushing him up to 23rd in the world rankings. He is on
the US PGA and European tours.
Known for bringing a sense of style to the golf course – with his “look good,
feel good, play good” mantra – he has created his own successful clothing
line, Ian Poulter Design, which will design the uniforms for the Great
Britain and Ireland team in the 2008 Curtis Cup.
Born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, he broke into the professional circuit in 1999
when he won the Open de Côte d’Ivoire. In 2004 he was a member of the
victorious Ryder Cup team.
Poulter, 32, lives near Woburn, Bedfordshire, with his wife Katie and children
Aimee-Leigh, six, and Luke, four.
How much money do you have in your wallet? Probably £100. I play
tournaments pretty much all the time so I make a weekly withdrawal of a
suitable amount to get me through the days.
Are you a cash or card person? At tournaments I generally use cash but
if I am out having a bit of a bender then it would have to be the credit
card because I don’t like walking round with too much cash on me.
I have about four different Coutts Gold cards. I try to keep my accounts
separate with one for my golf, one for my personal use and another two for
use in the US.
Are you a saver or a spender? I see myself as a saver but I do like to
treat myself when I have performed well. Having come second in the Open,
there is a fair chance I’ll be treating myself in the next couple of weeks.
I have a fetish for shoes, watches and cars. I have a couple of hundred pairs
of shoes, which can be a problem.
The ones I am wearing now are Dior, purchased at Harvey Nicks three weeks ago.
I had to get my US visa down at the embassy and it so happened that I had
just enough time to nip into Harvey Nicks and buy five pairs.
I’ve got an awful lot of watches, too, and I do like to splash out on cars. I
have an accountant who tells me off all the time for spending too much money.
Would you describe yourself as a risk-taker? I am a risk-taker at
times. I occasionally go to the casino and I also own a race horse which I
bet on. It’s all for fun.
The horse is called Wotashirtfull. A good friend of mine, Ray Parlour, who
used to play for Arsenal, came up with that crazy name. I own the horse with
my manager and Ray. It has had one or two races in the past month, one of
them in Perth.
And what about the Ryder Cup? The Ryder Cup team is picked at the end
of August and I am playing five more tournaments before that qualification
is up, so I will know at the end of those five. I am pretty much on the edge
of the side right now and if I continue to play as well as I did earlier
this month I should be able to find my way inside.
How much did you earn last year? I don’t know. You might be able to
tell me. [He won $899,325 (£452,000) in the Open. So far this year he has
won $1,366,764 and last year $1,431,390]. I do not really keep track. Let’s
put it this way, more than what I earned 10 years ago when I was working in
a shop.
The golf course is my office. It’s a business. If I perform well on the golf
course then my business will run very well. That’s how you have to treat it.
That is what pays the bills at the end of the day.
On a personal note, if I don’t like the venue of a golf tournament I won’t
play because it is too detrimental to your world-ranking position.
My salary has gone down a lot since we launched the clothing range. It is
expanding very quickly in a market which is obviously under pressure right
now and we are now in a position where we will be in 20 countries as of
January.
It is great to be able to be strong in this climate but it was probably a
couple of million dollars to start up the business.
We should be in a good position in December and seeing some black numbers soon
after.
If I keep playing good golf the business will run a lot easier so there is
more pressure on me to keep playing well.
How much was in your first pay packet? I used to earn £3 an hour as an
assistant in a golf pro shop at Chesfield Downs, near Stevenage. I did that
full time after leaving school at 16. I lasted there for three years and
then moved over to Leighton Buzzard Golf Club where I was earning £200 a
week. I was there for four years.
If you are a passionate golfer it is a nice mix. You are working at the golf
course, you get to play on the golf course for free and you get to buy golf
equipment at a discount. Have you ever been hard up? I was very hard up
during my pro-shop days. Running a car on top of food and mortgage costs on
£200 a week was very difficult.
I worked as an assistant for seven years in total, from the age of 16 to 23.
However, I managed to play a few golf tournaments while working to boost my
income. I won my first tournament as a pro when I was 19, in 1995. It was an
order of merit event, the Panshanger Classic, which I won by two shots.
I picked up about £1,000 for that tournament. It was great. That was like
earning five weeks’ wages in two days.
What property do you own? I have a property in a village not far from
Woburn. I live there half the year.
I also have a four-bedroom property in Orlando, Lake Nona, which I use as my
American base when I am playing in the PGA tour.
A lot of golfers have houses there, including Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia, and
Nick Faldo. It is kind of a golfing community with a good course and lovely
houses; it is a great place to be.
My UK house has five bedrooms and sits on a couple of acres and also has a
165-yard practice range where I can work. I bought it for £1.5m and I would
think it is worth a couple of million now.
I paid $1.5m for the American house in December which, even in this climate,
has managed to go up because of the community it’s in.
I have another house being built in the Bahamas right now. It’s a five-bedroom
property that will be finished by December next year.
Like in Lake Nona, the house is in a private, gated community where there are
about 30 individual houses. It sits on the beach and there is a huge water
park, a marina, which is also being built, a golf course, a sports centre
and an equestrian centre. It is quite an awesome place.
Do you invest in shares? No.
What's better - property or pension? Property. I have a small pension
fund but I have no clue what kind. Before I started my professional golf
career I did not have a spare penny to put towards a pension.
What is your financial priority? In terms of property, my aim is to own
in the right locations. Houses over time have been a great investment for
everybody. Even with the market the way it is right now, the houses I own
have not devalued.
What has been your worst investment? Cars. Cars are not an investment.
They burn money very quickly. I bought a couple of cars for £150 and they
lasted about three months before they died .
I now have a few BMWs, including an M5 and an X6, which have been great. I
also have a Mini Cooper S.
My Ford GT, which I have had for two years, cost about £100,000. I want to
keep that one for ever because it will be an investment one day - it will go
up in price because it is a limited edition.
And your best? The house in the Bahamas was definitely my best
investment.
What aspect of the tax system would you change? I’d make it easier to
live in your home country. I do pay my UK tax but it is getting to a level
where I am potentially thinking about not living in the UK because I am
taxed at such a high level. I don’t use the facilities enough and I don’t
spend enough time here to warrant paying the taxman millions of pounds.
Do you have a money weakness? My watch, shoe and car fetishes. These
are not investments. I buy them purely for pleasure.
What is the most important lesson you have learnt about money? To be
around your family and friends and to be happy whether you’re on £200 a week
or several hundred thousand pounds a week.
I think golf is a very lucrative sport, but one where you have to earn your
money. I am not saying that other sports are not, but in football you get
paid on a weekly basis whether you play or you don’t. If I don’t perform I
don’t get paid. Right now, though, it is a good time to be playing golf.
