Ian Poulter told Golf Night there could be no excuses for his poor performance at The Open.
Next win is just around the corner, insists Poults
Ian Poulter told
Golf Night there could be no excuses for his poor performance at The Open.
Poulter has enjoyed a consistent season to date, but failed to make it past Friday at Turnberry after following up an opening-round 75 with a poor 79 to leave him 14 over par, 10 shots shy of the cut.
The Englishman attempted to put his disappointment behind him as he hosted an invitational tournament for promising young players at Woburn this week - and
Golf Night went along to sample the occasion.
We let the youngsters fire some questions at Poulter - and he admitted to them that he should have played much better at The Open, following his second-place finish at Royal Birkdale in 2008.
He said: "I was going there in good form, I felt confident and I wanted to go one place better than I did at Birkdale.
"To be honest, I found myself a little tired, which shouldn't be an excuse. I played seven tournaments out of nine weeks and that might have been a little bit too much to bite off.
"Maybe next year I won't play quite as much leading into The Open, that's the only thing I can put it down to right now.
"I have been in good form, the best form of my life I would say. There's no excuses for it, my golf game just wasn't there."
Frustrating
He admitted it was especially frustrating to miss the cut, as he was hoping to become the first British player since Paul Lawrie in 1999 to lift the famous Claret Jug.
He added: "It always hurts when you want to be in the mix, yet you're at home doing day-to-day things that you shouldn't really be doing. You should be on the golf course playing golf, so of course it hurts.
"I wanted to be out there competing. Seeing guys up there on the leaderboard like Luke Donald, Lee Westwood and Ross Fisher, they were out there trying to put an end to 10 years without a British winner."
However, Poulter believes his next win is only just around the corner as he feels his game is in good shape.
And he insists he is only focusing on the positives after a number of near misses in tournaments already this season.
"I will win again very soon I believe," he said.
"I really feel I am carrying a lot of form. I feel that I've had a lot of chances this year and I think it's coming. I don't think it will be too long.
"You're playing good golf if you're going to finish runner-up so you have to take the positives out of that.
"If you've got a three-shot lead with three holes to play and you keep finishing second then that might be a little bit frustrating - but I haven't found myself in that position of yet this year.
"I have been coming from the pack to try and press forward and that's something I haven't really done before when I've won, to burst out of the pack and shoot a low round on Sunday.
"I've been posting some good numbers on Saturdays and Sundays, but unfortunately they're not quite low enough as yet."
Setting sights
Currently ranked at number 16 in the world, Poulter also insists he is setting his sights on troubling the top 10 before the end of the year.
He said: "With having the consistent finishes that I've had in the tournaments I've been playing - only four times this year I've finished outside the top 20 - so looking at that I've been very, very solid.
"Therefore I've been picking up consistent world ranking points, finishing runner up at The Players Championship was huge world ranking points and a couple of other events have been worthy of good points.
"I just need to be able to win one and then I can not be 16th - I can be 12th or 11th."
