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ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANSApril 29, 2017Geoff OgilvyIan PoulterAvondale, Louisiana GEOFF OGILVY: It was pretty good I think. We got off to a great start. We birdied the first two and kind of lost our way a little bit. I hit a horrible shot off 6 in the water. We had a few chances but kind of stealing a birdie on 17 a little bit, maybe letting a little bit of a chance go on 18. All in all, I think under par today was good. Q. What makes him a good partner? IAN POULTER: You know what, he does it good golf shots, he's good in the wind, controls his ball flight exceptionally well. And today, before we went out, you know, it's hard to predict a good score with the conditions as they were. But Geoff plays well in these conditions; so do I, and anything in the red today is good. Q. Breaking news story, obviously PGA TOUR seem to have reversed their decision about your membership on the TOUR. It appeared you lost your card and now you have it back. Could you explain it? IAN POULTER: I'll try to do it very quickly. Yeah, it's great news. Under the 2016 PGA TOUR season, the points, FedEx points, were slightly off from positions 15 down to 68, and rolling into 2017, they adjusted those points, so you actually get less points. And because Brian Gay and myself were actually playing for a 2016 basic card to play for 2017 season, we was actually being slightly devalued in all the events that we played. That was brought to their attention. They have done the recall calculations off of the 2016 correct points, and it puts Brian Gay and myself in a position where we actually have enough. Obviously quite a relief to know that I can play my schedule and plan my schedule for the rest of 2017, and obviously I've got work to do to maintain my status for a regular season, but I'm in a very different situation today than what I was yesterday. It's obviously a big bit of good news. You know, I wasn't aware of the FedEx points deduction being that significant. So when it was brought to their attention, obviously a couple of days ago, they realized that Brian and myself were obviously trying to earn points for the 2016 season. So it would have been slightly unfair if we was being devalued from our opportunities we had last year in 2016. So by doing the calculation of our finishes, as if they were under the 2016 points, you know, we were in a slightly different position. So for the TOUR to unanimously decide that was the fair thing to do, today puts me in a very different situation with being able to play my schedule, play THE PLAYERS and play all the remaining events that I would like to play to obviously keep going in the right direction. Q. Which means a start in the PLAYERS Championship? IAN POULTER: It's huge. It's such a big difference to get that bit of news, and you know, it's nice when it's a surprise I guess. You know, a slight oversight on their behalf, it's very easily done I guess when they are going from one year to the next. But it was obviously a nice decision for them to make that and obviously very impactful to obviously Brian and myself. Q. When did you find out? IAN POULTER: Yesterday afternoon -- straight after my round of golf. Q. Shocking at all? IAN POULTER: Well, it's unexpected, isn't it. So I would have just said it was a nice surprise, is what it was. It's obviously a good surprise, you know, to hear good news when you've been under an awful lot of pressure to play golf, you've come under a lot of tricky media questions in the last month; and being somewhat subjected to some social media abuse, it's been tough. The last month's been hard to deal with. I thought obviously I could have done enough at Hilton Head under normal terms but obviously in my eyes and as we thought, that wasn't quite enough, and had to go last week to play and obviously as it happened, I didn't have to. So you know, it was nice. It's turned out to be good. I can concentrate on the golf that I've got left in front of me. Hopefully it might quiet down some of the interesting people on social media and I won't have to block quite so many people. Q. Staying in that position, does it give you added incentive? IAN POULTER: It doesn't give me added incentive. It just means I can actually concentrate on a schedule and plan a schedule, which therefore, should make it easier for me to play golf. Being in kind of No Man's Land, not knowing whether you're going to play golf, is very tough and very hard to book anything. It is a drastic change from yesterday morning before I teed off to the position I stand today, and you know, I'm appreciative of the PGA TOUR that it was even brought to their attention, and they went about making that decision with the players board, they got a unanimous decision to obviously count our points for 2016 as they should. Q. Do you know how it was brought to their attention? IAN POULTER: Yeah, I do, but you know what, it's neither here nor there how it transpired. The fact is, it was brought to their attention. I think it doesn't really matter, is the honest answer. I'm happy. I'm a little relieved. Yeah, lunch is going to taste a little better today than what obviously it did. Q. You weren't aware of the total -- IAN POULTER: Well, had I been aware of it, I would have caught myself, right, and I would have asked them -- Q. We can eliminate you -- IAN POULTER: It wasn't me, I'll say that much. It wasn't me. But someone else was in a position that they weren't exempt for an event and potentially they had to earn a few pore more points. They kind of sat back, thought about, it went through a process of how the points had been calculated on to that season, found out there could possibly be a discrepancy, brought that up with the TOUR. They agreed, actually, so it's an easy over sight, I guess, from transitioning the points from 2016 to 2017, it's an oversight. You know what, it's worked in the favor of obviously Brian and myself. So it's good news. Everyone's happy, right. It's one of those unfortunate situations that you find yourself in two weeks ago, and you know, it's very different. So you can plan a schedule. Katy and the kids are going to go back to Europe for a nice chunk of time. I'm going to try and play as much golf as I can in a condensed time frame now to do everything I need to do to be able to go back and spend a bit of time in Europe. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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