Ian Poulter believes his best is yet to come after playing his way into the Masters.
The Englishman needed a win at the Houston Open to advance into the year's first major and duly delivered, making a 20-foot putt for birdie to get into a play-off and then capitalising on a Beau Hossler mistake to win a play-off.
It is all a far cry from last season when the 42-year old thought he had lost his card in America before being handed a reprieve after a recalculation.
The win was his first in six years but Poulter is now fully focused on getting back to his best and earning a place at the Ryder Cup.
He told a press conference streamed by the PGA Tour: "It's tough when you're down, when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, when everything seems to be going wrong, it's hard, it gets you down.
"But it's not the first time I've gone through some roller coasters. That's as low as I've ever been, that's as far down the world rankings as I've been, questioning whether you've got a Tour card or not - it isn't very good.
"It's not very good for your mental strength. It's not very good for your psyche, but to reassess, to reform the team, Paul Dunkley, my agent, has done an incredible job... simplifying my life to get me back on track, it's been amazing. The journey continues.
"I've had 19 good years on tour and I guess I've got another couple coming. There's life in the old dog yet."
With just one place up for grabs, only victory at the Golf Club of Houston would have been enough for the Englishman to earn his right to play in the season's first major after narrowly missing out through his world rankings position and a mix-up during the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play last week.
Poulter found himself 51st in this week's world rankings, with the top 50 players receiving an invite to Augusta National, which came two days after being informed that he had done enough to qualify ahead of his quarter-final in Mexico, only to be told 10 minutes before his defeat to Kevin Kisner that he required another victory.
His chances of qualification looked slim when he carded a poor first round - where he hit a one-over par 73 to sit 123rd - but recovered to record a flawless eight-under on Friday and seven birdies on Saturday to share the lead with Hossler ahead of the final round.
Poulter, who held a four-shot lead midway through the final round, trailed by one with three holes remaining after Hossler rattled in four successive birdies from the 12th, but the Englishman holed out a 20-foot birdie putt at the last to extend the tournament.
Hossler's quest for his first PGA title ended in disaster after finding bunkers with his first two shots when replaying the 18th.
His third shot from a greenside bunker found water handing the initiative to Poulter, who kept his nerve to secure victory with a steady par - and sealing his first title since the 2012 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel