It was common in the United States years ago to see Ben Crenshaw in one seat on a plane and no one in the next seat. “Why is that seat not occupied?” Crenshaw was asked. “Because I buy a ticket for Calamity Jane, my putter, so I can take her on the plane with me and put her in the overhead locker,” Crenshaw replied. “That way I know she is going to be safe.”

That was the way it was before the days of lockable and reinforced golf storage bags that could be entrusted to the hold of an aircraft without fear of them being broken. When Crenshaw was at his peak, when he was the best putter in the world, he would no more have been parted from the club with which he was such a wizard than he would from his wallet or house keys.

This came to mind yesterday when word arrived of Ian Poulter discovering that a replacement for his driver, which had been stolen in Shanghai, would not be ready in time for the start today of the Barclays Singapore Open, forcing Poulter to withdraw from the event that has attracted Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington and Ernie Els and carries a purse of $5million (about £3.3 million).

Having a driver stolen from a golf bag is rather like a racing driver having a favourite steering wheel taken from his car. No wonder Poulter was upset. “I am really gutted,” the world No 25 said. “I have been thinking about it for four hours and I have decided to withdraw because my new driver will not arrive in time. It is disappointing because I did not come all this way not to play. But with so many world-ranking points at stake, if I played badly [using a different driver], I may have lost ground.”

To some, this may rank as professional golf's equivalent of a toy being thrown out of a pram and that Poulter is known to be a peacock with a distinctive hairstyle may merely add to this impression. You would not expect to hear of Tiger Woods pulling out of an event because a club had been stolen. He won the US Open last June on one and a half legs and he even played a few holes in the Ryder Cup in 2006 without his nine-iron after Steve Williams, his caddie, lost his balance while cleaning the club and dropped it into a greenside pond.

Those who think Poulter should merely buy another driver from the local pro's shop fail to understand the pecking order in which golfers hold their clubs. Take a putter from a pro's bag the night before the start of a tournament and you might as well steal up behind him and hit him over the head with a brick. He will be furious and unable to find another one with which he can establish any empathy in the short time before he has to tee off.

It would not be the same if, say, an iron were stolen. A professional golfer can get around a feeling of slight unease with an iron by not using it or by simply hitting a shorter club a little harder or going down the shaft of a longer club and swinging more easily.

For putter, read driver. For the club that is used on just about every green, read the club that is used on most of the holes that are not par threes. Since there are usually four short holes on an 18-hole course, that means the driver may be used up to 14 times.

It takes a long time to find a driver that sits behind the ball in a way that is suitable to the player's eye, that feels good in his hands, that has a shaft with which he is comfortable. A professional's driver will have a special shaft and grip. He may have fixed some lead on the bottom of the club to give it more oomph and he may have had the head toed in, to make it a touch hooded, or toed out, to make it open.

In short, the driver is built to the player's specification. It is like a tailor-made suit. Understand that and you understand Poulter a little better. Whether he should have withdrawn is another matter. Other golfers might have made do with another driver or simply gone without. Poulter is different. Always has been, always will be.

Other golfers who went clubbing

- Anthony Kim banged his driver on a sprinkler head in the HSBC Champions tournament last week in Shanghai. Two wild drives followed and Kim was disqualified for playing with an altered driver.

- Ian Woosnam had an extra club in his bag for the final round of the 2001 Open. He was penalised two strokes and finished third.

- Ben Crenshaw broke his putter on the 6th hole of his singles against Eamonn Darcy in the 1987 Ryder Cup and had to putt with a one-iron or a sand-wedge. Darcy won on the last green and minutes later the US had lost the Ryder Cup on home soil for the first time.