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MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 6, 2018

Ian Poulter

Augusta, Georgia

Q. Tough finish, but looks like you'll be here for the rest of the weekend, around for the weekend.
IAN POULTER: We'll see. We'll see. It's not easy out there, the course is playing very tough, as you can see with the scores. Jordan's come back and the board isn't really going forward. So the wind's picked up a bit, the greens are still dry, it's tricky. So, yeah, we'll just see how it goes.

Q. Talk about that round, it was a bit of a topsy turvey last few holes there, certainly the back nine.
IAN POULTER: Birdie bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie, bogey. You know, it was just a few lose shots. It's tricky, as I said. It's not easy. I chipped it from right of the green in the hazard on 11 which obviously is not very smart and I made double there. I played the par‑3 well. Birdied the par‑5. Pulled it off 14, made bogey. Birdied 15. Hit it in the right hand bunker on 16, which is a sackable offense. It's a little wet in there for some reason, why, I'm not really sure why, maybe they gave it just a little bit of juice, you know, to have us on our toes a little bit. And then obviously birdie, bogey finish. So it is what it is. This was always going to be a tricky week coming off of last week, so it was just see how it goes. I feel a 66, 66 here, like two years ago, and the fine line around this golf course are what make it so good. You can quite easily go out ‑‑ I mean that really is the most I could have possibly shot today and the most I could have possibly shot yesterday. So with that in mind and in my mind what I know I can play on the weekend on this golf course, if I was to shoot 66, 66, that's going to be a very nice position come Sunday. But we don't even know if I'm going to be here yet to make that happen. So it's up to the guys who are out on the course now to determine that.

Q. Much tougher than yesterday, right?
IAN POULTER: Yes and no. I haven't looked at the scores. On some holes it's easier with more wind. Yesterday was just like a three mile an hour wind which kept going all over the place, like it does around this golf course. So you could get caught out yesterday and you think it's a three mile an hour wind, into the wind, and it goes down wind three miles an hour, so that's a 10 yard difference, that's a huge problem. You would rather it be 10 mile an hour straight in, at least you know you've got a wall there to hold the ball up. So some guys are going to find it trickier today, some guys are going to find it easier.

Q. Did you get put on the clock at all?
IAN POULTER: Twice.

Q. What did you think about that?
IAN POULTER: What did I think about it? I think as a group we were slow, but I'm not going to say the reasons why we were slow. I'm going to say we. Let me just generalize and say we. Just to keep that clean.

Q. Did it put you out of your rhythm?
IAN POULTER: Let me just say it's fine. I'm quite happy to be on the clock every hole of my life, it doesn't affect me.

Q. (No Microphone.)
IAN POULTER: We had to be on the clock. We're too slow. When you're too slow, you need to speed up, end of conversation. If we're slow‑‑

Q. Didn't affect your play?
IAN POULTER: Didn't affect my play at all. I'm quite comfortable being on the clock every single shot. I'm not going to call foul. Unless you stand on the 12th and 11th and you get a big wind switch, that's when, obviously it's going to get tricky. So I mentioned to the lads, we need to get off this clock coming up 12. And we did. But quite quickly we fell back on the clock. So we rightly should have been back on it.

Q. The referee spoke to you on the 8th tee. Was that the first time that they talked to you?
IAN POULTER: Listen, I don't care if I'm on the clock. It doesn't bother me. It's not, it's never going to affect my golf, so I'm fine. And I know I'm quick enough. That's all I'm saying.

Q. Was there a bit of fatigue that took over this week?
IAN POULTER: I was always going to be fatigued. I'm never going to be fresh, am I, coming into this week. I'm under prepared, I got here Tuesday afternoon, I needed to have a day off from Monday, from a practice perspective, yeah, I'm under practiced, I didn't get many holes in. I got 18 kind of quick holes in. But it's a long week, I hope it's a bit longer. I know this golf course, so there's not really anything I needed to learn. 10th green might be a fraction slower, 12th green might be a fraction slower, because they're the two newly laid greens. But apart from that the golf course is playing exactly the same. There's a couple of new pin positions. I think yesterday the 15th hole right, on 10 that's a new one I haven't seen. I've got all the pins in my books from, I have four years in my book and I haven't seen it in those four years. So that was a new one. There's obviously a couple more which are just like one yard out. So they're clever in that way because just one yard out on some of the greens can give you a different break. So you just have to be aware of that and you have to know your pins, you have to know your lines, so, yeah, I mean that was a long‑winded version, yes, it's hard.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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