Ian Poulter staged his own version of the ‘Late Late Show’ at Augusta National with a fine 68 to move into the top ten after the first round of the Masters Tournament.
The 34 year old Englishman, who won the WGC-Accenture Match Play in Arizona in February, continued to excel on American soil with a stirring showing.
Out in the third last group of the day, Poulter maintained his concentration superbly in tricky, windy conditions and also coped well with the distraction of having to play in the group in front of Tiger Woods.
Two under par to the turn, his momentum was halted slightly with a bogey five on the tricky tenth hole but he recovered magnificently with a strong finish to his round, beginning with a birdie four on the par five 13th.
The leading points scorer in the 2008 Ryder Cup at Valhalla then showed his battling spirit with excellent ten foot birdie putts on both the 14th and 17th holes before getting up and down from the greenside bunker on the 18th to save par.
“It was looking tricky first thing this morning,” he said. “The weather forecast was that it would be stormy this afternoon but although the lightning stayed away, it was still pretty blustery in parts of the course. So, for me to shoot four under par is a great start. I'm very pleased.
“You have to be patient on this golf course. You don't want to get caught up by the wind so you're just going to have to wait for the right time. If it's blowing just make sure you trust it and just keep hitting the shots that you have chosen.
“I think a couple of the par fives played a little easier because the wind was in favour of them so therefore you could hit it down there, hit it in position to go for it in two. I think the guys would have taken advantage of the 13th and the 15th today. You also had a chance on the eighth as well with that being downwind. So that is a key to this golf course, playing the par fives well.
“You can't win this golf tournament on Thursday, but you can certainly put yourself out of it and that's always in your mind when it's blowing 25 miles an hour around that front nine. So you just have to be patient and try and put in a decent score on a Thursday. It’s my joint lowest round here, so I'm happy.”
