Ian Poulter's early years.." From selling sausage rolls to Super-star".

I have followed Ian Poulter's career since he was a cocky 19 year old who had dropped out of school to work as a golf assistant and decided to turn pro in 1996 out of Leighton Buzzard GC in Herefordshire, England. I will always remember after his first win he showed up the next week with a Rod Stewart look-a-like haircut, dyed about 3 different colours.

He is and always will be one of the game's most colourful characters, and I thought you'd like this post from europeantour.com this week.

* Ryder Cup star. Ferrari owner. Multi-millionaire. The Ian Poulter of today lives a very different life to the Ian Poulter of yester-year, who sold sausage rolls, manned a cash register, and coached juniors for just £1.

 

Knowing he only wanted to play golf for a living, Poulter first started working at Chesfield Downs Golf Club in Hertfordshire, England, from the age of 14, spending five years there as a golf shop manager and assistant professional, after choosing to join the paid ranks in 1996.

 

Aged 19 and eager for a change of scene, Poulter moved to nearby Leighton Buzzard Golf Club in 1996 where he began a new job, working closely as an assistant to the head professional, Lee Scarbrow.

Scarbrow recalls a young man who had a strong work ethic and a touch of class which showed in almost everything he put his mind too.

“He was always a star even when he had 50p in his pocket,” said Scarbrow. “When working in the Pro Shop he was brilliant, and his attention to detail was almost OCD.
“He would keep the shop perfect and his jumper folding was truly class. I would laugh with him about this, but I think that attention to detail has stayed with him and helped him in his approach to his golf, always seeming to hit the right shot when it mattered. He was, and is, a great closer"

One of Poulter’s key roles at Leighton Buzzard involved leading the club’s junior section. Every Sunday he would run group sessions for children aged between five and ten, which would only cost each youngster £1 – not bad for a lesson from a man who has since gone on to win 17 European Tour titles.

 

“We used to call it ‘PeeWee Club’,” said Scarbrow. “Any child who turned up on a Sunday morning, we would charge them one pound a go, and we used to have at least 60 coming along for those sessions. It was Ian’s love of the game and his enthusiasm that helped drive this forward. He was a good little coach, anything he put his mind to he was good at, which made him such a pain in the neck at times!”

 

While Scarbrow admits that Poulter would blame ‘cats, dogs, deers, moose and flat tyres’ when he was running late, ‘he was always late’, Scarbrow says,  he more often remembers times when a hard-working Poulter went the extra mile.

"When the club built a new club house we had to run the Pro Shop from a shed,” he said. “To help make money in the winter Ian came up with the idea that we should sell hot soup and sausage rolls from the shed.

“He would go and visit the baker’s each day to pick up the sausage rolls. Every little helped the club, and it showed he had an entrepreneurial side to him – he now deals in Ferraris which is a bit of a step up!”

Three years after joining Leighton Buzzard Golf Club, Poulter was claiming his first victory on the European Challenge Tour at the 1999 Ivory Coast Open in west Africa, and the rest is history. But it was many of the relationships which Poulter forged during his time at the Bedfordshire-based club which would set him up on his path to the very top.

“Ian met his manager Paul Dunkley, who was my sponsor, while at Leighton,” said Scarbrow. “He would help Ian and his career so much. Ian also met his first sponsor, Terry McCann from McCann Homes, at Leighton who also helped set Ian on the path to stardom.

“When Ian played in local events he often predicted that he was going to win – unfortunately he tended to be right. Safe to say he became the ‘mail man’ early"