Ryder Cup: Ian Poulter vows to rebound from heavy Friday defeat
Friday 26 September 2014 18:53, UK
Ian Poulter insists he can bounce back from a rare Ryder Cup disappointment on the opening morning at Gleneagles.
Poulter paired up with rookie Stephen Gallacher in the first set of fourball matches and they were thrashed 5 & 4 by a pair of American first-timers in Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed.
The defeat was Poulter's heaviest in his fifth go at the tournament, having been top scorer and sparked Europe's remarkable fightback at Medinah two years ago - he and Gallacher were rested for the afternoon foursomes matches.
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Frustrating
But he said: "Obviously my record has been pretty good so taking a dent this morning I can shrug that off and look forward to Saturday.
"Obviously it's a loss on the board, whether that be 5 & 4 or one down, but I don't look at it as a heavy loss, I just look at it as a loss. Ryder Cup is very black or white. It's very simple: You lose or you win.
"I said to Stevie walking off the golf course when I played with Darren Clarke in 2004 we had our butts kicked the first time I ever played (losing 4 & 3 to Tiger Woods and Chris Riley) and obviously we've had that today. But you know what, things can change very quickly,
"This is a team game and they have to beat 12 of us. It's not just about singling one or two guys out. This is about us digging in when we need to and that's exactly what we need to do as a team.
"Me personally, I need to hole a few more putts and that's what I didn't do. I left a few putts short, which is very frustrating, but this is a strong team and a team that you'll see fight very hard right till the end.
"I knew I wasn't playing five coming in this week, and I probably didn't want to play five coming into this week. Not many people have been able to play five and win five and the reason for that is because it's very tiring.
"I'm 38; we've got some younger pups on the team that might be able to do it better than I can. If my role is to play twice or three or four or five times then I will go out there and do whatever I'm asked to do."
Spieth said it was great to go up against Poulter in his first Ryder Cup match, and he hopes to have another chance to partner Reed on Saturday.
Jealous
"Hopefully we get out Saturday morning with the same idea. I mean, we've got all the confidence in the world," he added.
"Most of our birdies were on different holes but, at the same time, on holes where we made birdie the other was in good position any way.
"We just hit a lot of greens together: one putt may miss, the other may go in but when you get a lot of looks from 20 feet and in, especially with a guy who putts as well as Patrick does, we're going to end up filling it up.
"There are a few guys on our team that specifically would like to match up against Ian. There are a few guys that came up and told us that they are very jealous that we had them today.
"But whatever it is, past history or just the fact that he's known as being kind of the Ryder Cup wizard for the Europeans, he's certainly not under our skin because we haven't dealt with him before."
