To say golf has come a long way since the heyday of a mercurial young Englishman named Ian Poulter, who roared to number 5 in the world in 2010, illuminating and dominating Ryder Cups with a shock of spiky hair bleached blond and Arsenal red, is an understatement. Golf is, in just about every professional aspect, a different sport from what it was back then – or even 18 months ago.
Now 47, Poulter, already revered as the most talismanic European Ryder Cup player this century and one of golf’s biggest characters off the course, is a focal point in a game rent asunder by one of the most dramatic schisms in recent sporting history. The advent of Saudi-funded golf league LIV early last year presented the world’s top players with not only a financial quandary, but a moral and a sporting one: a choice of money over heritage; and total disruption over gradual progress.
The first time I spoke to Ian Poulter back in April, golf had settled into what felt like its very own phoney war. The PGA Tour, DP World (or European) Tour and their new common adversary co-existed in something of a tense harmony after an initial flurry of player departures and litigation. The PGA Tour’s loyalists defended its honour at press conferences week in, week out. LIV went about its merry business around the globe, organising events that felt like part golf tournament, part frat party. Deliciously, players from both tours still came into direct competition at golf’s four majors.
The feeling the Englishman conveyed over the phone – after nine months, countless abusive comments on social media and a sort-of-redemption arc depicted in Netflix documentary Full Swing – was that his decision to become one of LIV’s most high-profile defectors was the right one.
Even so, it was one that brought with it ample scrutiny, both from those questioning the source of the untold riches that had suddenly flooded the sport, and those debating whether LIV’s model of disruption was what the professional game even needed. His decision also came with sacrifice. Sitting outside the top 50 at the time of his move, Poulter’s already slim chances of ever winning a major diminished even further – as did his ambitions of playing in this year’s edition of the tournament he’s by far the most synonymous with: the Ryder Cup. The excitement of building something new, both in the form of LIV and the team he captains, outweighed the appeal of sticking to the status quo.
“Everything I’ve done so far is one part of my legacy,” he told GQ. “For me, the chance to grow the game and broaden its appeal to those who wouldn’t normally watch represents a new chapter. And that part is just starting.”
Rather unexpectedly, this stalemate came to an end in a way no one, save for two or three people and their attorneys, saw coming. With a few strokes of a pen, golf changed forever.
Almost exactly a year on from LIV’s first event Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced a framework deal that would see the nation invest huge sums into the PGA and DP World Tours, not just merging the three warring factions once more, but doing so largely under its own control. This was an investment far beyond that of a team or even a league: many outlets opined that Saudi Arabia had effectively bought itself a sport. For a day or two, golf dominated the front pages, as well as the back.
As I speak to Poulter again a month on from that landmark moment, he tells me he found out about the deal in basically the same way as every other pro golfer: walking off the driving range into the clubhouse. The only player who claims to have been told prior to its announcement was Rory McIlroy, ironically the most outspoken critic of LIV since its inception.
“Nobody knew it was happening aside from Jay [Monahan, the CEO of the PGA Tour] and Yassir [Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF],” he said. “But I thought it would happen at some stage. We knew we had a great model in LIV. Too much was said and done purely out of emotion. Business and common sense had to prevail eventually.”
One can only wonder how Poulter, who copped a particularly fierce social media backlash after his initial decision to join LIV, must have felt initially after the announcement. “It’s hard to put into words, really,” he says. “We all copped a lot of shit. There were actions by people and organisations that tried to harm our wellbeing.
“After being in the game for 25 years, it amazes me the names and faces that continue to hang around,’ says Poulter, reserving most of his vitriol for those in power at the PGA and DP World Tours, many of whom have had to make some spectacular U-turns in even agreeing to the deal. Perhaps most infamously, Monahan, who namechecked the victims of 9/11 as a justification while giving interviews against LIV, incurred the understandable wrath of survivor advocacy groups when the merger was announced.
In May, the DP World Tour watched Poulter, along with fellow European heavyweights Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood, resign after refusing to pay a fine imposed on them for joining LIV. The merger between the two tours was announced less than a month later, but Poulter says he has no interest in re-joining the European Tour with its powers-that-be still in position, even if it means missing out on this year’s Ryder Cup. “They burned their bridges, and now they’re trying to rebuild those bridges to walk back over them,” he adds.
The announcement of the framework has sparked rampant speculation not only about golf’s broader future, but the very reason for LIV coming to be. Many of those questions remain largely unanswered. Saudi Arabia’s desire to purchase a greater stake in the game of golf was well documented. Was LIV, then, simply a disruptor designed to bring golf’s reigning powers back to the negotiating table? Now that the PIF has what it always wanted, is there any reason for LIV to continue? And what of TGL, the indoor team golf league the PGA Tour is set to launch with Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods as its key investors?
“We simply don’t know how this system is going to work,” says Poulter. “We don’t know the financials; we don’t know if anyone is going to enjoy watching it. It’s unproven and untested. You have to question, though, whether it would have even been put together if LIV hadn’t come along.”
For Poulter himself, his focus now shifts to doing what he’s always done, whether it be through the loudest of the loud trousers, Miracles at Medinah, or chipping balls through the windows of his LaFerrari on Instagram: foster engagement and excitement around the game he loves. “We have a product which is working. We're continuing to grow the fan base and the platform. People want to watch and get involved with this team aspect. It’s good for golf that there have been sensible conversations to bring the game back together. This year might have driven it apart for a time, but we never intended to break it.”
See Ian Poulter at GQ Heroes in Oxfordshire, from 19-21 July, in association with BMW UK. For more info and tickets, visit GQHeroes.com
