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My birthday is February 21. I’m telling you that now so there are no excuses when it comes to sending me your best wishes on social media. May a plague of locusts infest the home of anybody who forgets.
Since the geniuses at Microsoft Office have so far failed to create an adequate sarcasm font, let me state very clearly and for that the record that I am, of course, joking. I’m not so precious as to get upset about stuff like that. I’m not Ian Poulter.
The Englishman celebrated his 47th birthday on Tuesday, a day after his fellow Ryder Cup hero and LIV colleague Sergio Garcia turned 43.
What do you get men who, seemingly, have everything? A tweet from Ryder Cup Europe, apparently.
It was on Tuesday that the aforementioned Twitter account shared a clip of Francesco Molinari from the 2018 Ryder Cup. The accompanying caption read: “Incredible touch.” It included an applause emoji but, again, the Microsoft boffins haven’t converted such characters into a font. (Seriously, lads, what do you do all day?)
Birthday boy Poulter – whose big day had been ignored by the account – took umbrage to that seemingly innocuous post.
“What’s really an ‘incredible touch’,” he replied, “is the Players that helped build the @RyderCupEurope Brand with other players as well. You just can’t bring yourself to say a simple Happy Birthday. @TheSergioGarcia B’day Yesterday. Unfortunately this says so much.”
Cue widespread (and, on the face of it, justified) derision.
Poulter’s tweet got “ratioed”, as people far younger and cooler than me would say. Whilst some spoke up in his defence, the vast majority seized the opportunity to ridicule and disparage him.
“Cry more.”
“Salty.”
“You’re golf’s Prince Harry.”
You get the picture.
What’s really an “incredible touch” is the Players that helped build the @RyderCupEurope Brand with other players as well. You just can’t bring yourself to say a simple Happy Birthday. @TheSergioGarcia B’day Yesterday. Unfortunately this says so much. 🤷🏼♂️
— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) January 10, 2023
The truth is (and bear with me) that Poulter had a point. He just completely defeated it by being the one to make it. Had he let the incident pass without comment – or even just articulated himself in a way that didn’t come off as whiny or juvenile – he might have got at least some of the sympathy he was fishing for.
Bottom line, Poulter clearly feels that the European Tour Group, which operates the Ryder Cup on this side of the Atlantic, is attempting to airbrush the past by ignoring he and his fellow LIV defectors. Players like Poulter, Garcia and Lee Westwood – stalwarts of the DP World Tour and Europe’s Ryder Cup successes over the past two to three decades – have been conspicuous by their absence from tour comms since they pledged fealty to Greg Norman’s new Saudi-funded enterprise last year.
Or, to put it in Poulter terms, they got social shout-outs on their birthdays last year.
The DP World Tour’s own feeds were widely condemned last October for ignoring Adrian Otaegui during the Andalucia Masters. The Spaniard – who has played in three LIV events and, like Poulter, successfully challenged the DP World Tour’s decision to ban him from the Genesis Scottish Open last summer – established a six-shot lead after three rounds at Valderrama and it was only then that the tour paid him any heed. Just as well. He ended up winning at a canter.
Last week, Westwood’s attention was drawn to a preview of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on the tour’s website. It listed a number of players who’ll feature in the UAE next week, including four of the last five winners. The odd man out? Westwood, of course, the 2020 champion. The assumption is that the writer looked at the list of recent winners and made a conscious decision not to include the guy who won just three years ago.
The question is why? Why are LIV golfers being Photoshopped out of the tour’s history?
There are two trains of thought.
One, that the DP World Tour has a litigious reason for ignoring them. With lawsuits flying and courtroom visits pending, would the tour be jeopardising its own case by “legitimising” LIV and its players with any public acknowledgment of their existence? Better to say nothing than something, no?
The other possibility is far more insidious: that the tour is ignoring them out of spite, much like a spurned lover might take a pair of scissors to photographs of “happier times”.
Let’s hope it’s the former. The latter is too malicious and, frankly, too depressing a prospect.
Fortunately, we should have some clarity before much longer. A UK-based dispute resolution service is expected to rule next month on whether or not the DP World Tour has the right to sanction players for competing in ‘conflicting events’ without permission. Should the ruling go against the tour, Poulter & Co. will be eligible to resume their DP World Tour careers.
Further down the road, the first Ryder Cup of the ‘LIV era’ will take place in September. Can the tour really tell the recent story of the match without mentioning Garcia (the contest’s record points-scorer), Westwood (who has played in a joint European record 11 matches), Poulter (‘Mr Ryder Cup’), Martin Kaymer (the man who sealed the ‘Miracle at Medinah’), and Graeme McDowell (the match-winner in 2010)? Good luck with that edit.
Until such times as a judge rules, or common sense prevails, it looks like we’ll have to get used to the pitiful phony war and pearl-clutching over perceived slights. Things like grown men chuntering in a legacy-decaying way over not having some digital candles to blow out.
Because, as we all know, that’s what men’s professional golf needs right now: more adults acting like children.
—
To get more from Michael, follow him on Twitter: @MMcEwanGolf
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