I’m terribly sorry – I haven’t posted this week due to a misbehaving tooth that culminated in the first stage of a root canal yesterday. Still, given the night I had Wednesday I have given anything to rid of the pain. Interestingly the only thing that provided any relief was sipping water and letting the water cool the exposed nerve. I thought the cocktail of legal pharmaceuticals might have had an affect – not to be. Plain old cold water – weird.
Anyway, back to the business of telling some over-egoed sportsman to shut his trap. Windows operating system doesn’t recognise the word egoed but I’m claiming it. This week it’s Ian Poulter.
It appears Mr. Pouter has put a book out this week. It’s called No Limits. An Autobiography. Guaranteed to give a wholly objective point of view on the man.
Before I get into why I think this poorly dressed blow-hard should ferme la bouche, allow me to reference some his achievements.
A worldwide victor of 16 professional tournaments from the European Tour to Australia and everywhere in between. An obvious inclusion in the Ryder Cup Team for Europe because of his ability to win games and piss the opposition off. These are very admirable from a guy who was an assistant pro playing off roughly a four handicap and a driving range. Believe me when I say – one of the shittest available jobs in the developed world. I absolutely admire his drive and determination to get near the top of this fickle game. However, as many sports people in the public eye are, he has made a bit of a dick of himself on a consistent basis. This timeline gives us an idea:
- 2006 – verbally abuses a marshal at a golf tournament. A volunteer.
- 2008 – publicly says if he were at the top of his game the would only be two players – Tiger and him
- 2008 – Accuses Anthony Kim of walking into him, a sort of shoulder charge, during Ryder Cup Matches
- 2010 – Calls Totenham Hotspur fans “yids”, a no-doubt antisemitic slur that has something to do with being Yiddish?
- 2014 – Calls Hideki Matsuyama an idiot. A rookie pro who did nothing in particular – bullied into going to Poulter and apologising. I think he should have aoplogised to Poulter with a high five….to the face…with a brick
- 2014 – Releases book called
No Off ButtonNo Limits – apparently goes on at some length as to what happened when Nick Faldo was Captain of the Europe Team (they lost) and called Sergio Garcia useless.
Faldo probably did call Sergio useless. Sir Nick is not beyond putting his size 12s in his own mouth from time-to-time. This book is sensationalist nonsense. I haven’t read it, I’m not going to. Yes, yes… I can hear Mrs Twyford saying “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover!”. Mrs. Twyford was my Primer 2 teacher. But, I will judge. Mr. Poulter has a history of letting his mouth go with fuck all to back it up. I am not, for one minute, belittling his achievements on the course – they are fantastic. What I am saying is a little humility now and again may not go amiss. From his mouth to his personality to his very odd dress sense, Mr. Poulter is loud all-round in the same mold as serial numb-nuts Chris Ashton. I’m all for having personality and showing it on course, but there is way of going about it. I love nothing more to see a guy with a personality play golf and have fun and interact. Guys like Rory McIlroy, Lee Trevino, Matt Kuchar, Ricky Fowler and Payne Stewart are/were great for our game. Guys with personailty (different to the drones in tan pants and sunglasses who have a rather monotonous look about them), guys with flair, and guys who have the good grace to know when to shut up. Golfers like Bubba Watson and Ian Poulter are no models for our young golfers coming up in the sport.
So, Mr. Poulter….just shut up.
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