Ian Poulter ejects fan after heckling

Ian Poulter managed to keep his cool after a fan shouted for his ball to land in a bunker and, instead, got the fan ejected – then called for heckling to be ‘stamped out’.

Poulter made the comments during a post-round interview with Nick Dougherty on Sky Sports, after footage was played of the fan yelling “get in the bunker!” after the Ryder Cup star had hit his approach into the 18^th green during the WGC FedEx St Jude Invitational.

“I get it. I am an Englishman,” he told Dougherty during the Q&A. “I play on the Ryder Cup team. I am sure I have upset a few of these guys from time to time when they are watching television – but when we are playing a world class event like we do, week in week out, and you have got guys like that, that are in a small group, they want to feel big in front of their friends and they scream silly things out, it is disappointing.”

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Poulter had the spectator ejected from the grounds after seeming to confront him, but said that was something he didn’t like to do, despite the circumstances.

He said: “I hate to do that – but why should we be abused in this day and age?”

Dougherty asked him if he thought the abuse was ‘getting worse’ and Poulter “unfortunately it happens quite often” before saying that something needs to be done.

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“Most of the time we just ignore it and let it go, but, you know, it’s a real shame. It’s disappointing. Here, we’ve got a WGC tournament, a great field, great players, it’s got a great purse, it’s got everything that we want to come here and compete apart from one idiot who decided to be silly. I hope, going forward, we can control it more and more and it gets stamped out. It is not needed in the game of golf.”