With house done, Poulter focused on golf
"I'm not a moving freak. I just like nice things," Poulter said. "So I guess, you know, you upgrade things as you go along. But this one being a big one and being a stressful one: two years and nine months is abnormally long to build a house.
"I could write a book. There were a lot of interesting hiccups along the way, but I'm glad to say they are all behind me, and we are going to spend that first night in there on Sunday."
AP Photo/John RaouxIn his past two PGA Tour starts, Ian Poulter has finished seventh at the Masters and third at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.Last year, Poulter missed the cut at half of his 12 PGA Tour events and had just two top-10s. The always impeccably dressed former Accenture Match Play champion, who was once thought to be a strong contender at the majors, missed the cut in 2011 at both the U.S. Open and the Open Championship. After his win last May at the Volvo World Match Play Championship, he had only one top-10 in the remainder of the year at the UBS Hong Kong Open, where he finished fourth.
At the beginning of the 2012 season, he made a vow to refocus his efforts on the golf course. Based on his seventh-place finish at the Masters, he appears to have rededicated himself to the game.
On Thursday, Poulter had 21 putts -- including nine one-putts.
"I hit a lot of good shots and then missed a couple of the greens just by a tiny bit, so you would expect to get those up and down," Poulter said. "But I had no idea that the run was nine single putts in a row.
"You know, if you've got your eye in these greens and you do start it online, you should expect a ball certainly from 20 feet and in to go in. I mean they are absolutely perfect."
Poulter might finally be clearheaded enough to bring that exacting attention for detail to his golf game. Over the next three days, the Stadium Course will certainly force him to use those skills.
Farrell Evans covers golf for ESPN and can be contacted at evans.espn@gmail.com.
Farrell Evans
Golf- Senior golf writer for ESPN.com
- Wrote for Sports Illustrated/Golf Magazine for 9 years
- Played college golf at Florida A&M
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Michael Collins has been writing for ESPN.com since yesterday. He started out as a stand up comedian and fell into PGA Tour golf and caddying completely by accident in 1998.
He started looping for fun in 1999 but by 2003 had decided to make it a full time gig. He won the Nationwide Tour Championship with Chris Couch in 2003 and was on the bag for Kevin Streelman when they captured the inaugural Kodak Challenge in 2009.
Michael has never won an award for his writing, probably because he failed high school English and still types with his index fingers. But he's smart, funny, and most importantly knows the game/players/caddies and what they go through on a week-to-week basis and brings a caddie perspective that's different than anything you've ever seen when it comes to golf coverage.
Farrell Evans grew up in Forsyth, Ga., 60 miles south of Atlanta, where he learned the game at the Forsyth Golf Club, an 18-hole public course. After high school, he played on the golf team at Florida A&M University and interned with the PGA Tour at the TPC at Sawgrass.
Before joining ESPN.com in August 2011, he was a golf writer for nine years at Sports Illustrated. He currently lives in Harlem and can be contacted at evans.espn@gmail.com.
Bob Harig is a golf writer for ESPN.com and has been covering the game for more than 20 years, first at the St. Petersburg Times and for the last four years at ESPN.com. He began contributing to ESPN.com in 1997.
Harig is a native of Barrington, Ill., where he got his first exposure to golf as a caddie at Inverness Golf Club, where he earned an Evans Scholarship to attend Indiana University. He graduated with degrees in journalism and history.
Harig lives in Florida and can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com
Kevin Maguire is the senior golf editor for ESPN.com and covered his first PGA Tour event in 1994 while at American University in Washington, D.C. He played collegiately for the Eagles and graduated with a degree in print journalism.
Maguire grew up in the Philadelphia, Pa. area and now resides outside of Hartford, Conn. He has been with ESPN since February, 2007 and can be reached at Kevin.Maguire@espn.com.
Justin Ray is a senior researcher with ESPN Stats and Information. He has contributed to ESPN's golf coverage since joining the network out of college in 2008. He is based in Austin, Texas with the new Longhorn Network.
He can be contacted at Justin.Ray@espn.com.
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