Sports Then and Now

Ian Poulter will look to put together four great rounds at the 2011 Masters.

At the halfway stage of last year’s Masters Ian Poulter was leading the pack and looked a good bet to pick up his first major, only for a disappointing weekend to see the Englishman drop down the field to finish tied for tenth. While it was Poulter’s highest finish at Augusta, the 35-year old still walked away with more than a tinge of disappointment from the tournament.

This week Poulter will be desperate turn his consistently decent Masters record into a great one. Top-35 finishes in each of his six appearances at Augusta show that Poulter certainly knows how to play this course, but he will need to handle the mental side of winning the Masters, something the golf betting suggests he will struggle to do.

It is certainly going to need a significant improvement in Poulter’s current form if he is going to be in contention come Sunday. His successful 2010 – which saw him taste victory at the Accenture Match-Play and play a key role in Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph – has been followed by a disappointing start to this season. Poulter is currently without a top-ten finish in his last six tournaments and that poor run has had seen the Englishman’s ranking drop from seventh down to 16th. The US Masters betting indicates he could struggle at the tournament.

While admitting his game is way off where it needs to be, Poulter has still made confident noises about his chances when speaking in the run-up to the season’s opening major.

“It’s very frustrating and driving me mad. I need to push on. When I perform well I think I can play with the best players in the world for sure,” he said.

If Poulter is going to start fulfilling some of his self-made prophesies then he is going to need to start challenging at the big tournaments. And they don’t come much bigger than the Masters at Augusta.