Poulter will fight on after blow to pride

For once, Ian Poulter talked the talk but couldn’t walk the walk.

The lionhearted European superhero, unbeaten hero of Medinah two years ago, saw his Kryptonite unearthed at Gleneagles yesterday in the form of a pair of Texan rookies.

Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed defeated Poulter and Stephen Gallacher 5&4 during the morning fourballs having exposed the Englishman’s poor form this season as a continuing problem that even the white heat of the Ryder Cup could not strip away.

Benched for the afternoon session, as he was at Medinah, he had plenty of time to figure out how he could turn his frown and his form upside down for the sake of Team Europe.

“Obviously it’s a loss on the board, whether that be 5&4 or one-down or however that may be,” Poulter said. “I don’t look at it as a heavy loss. I just look at it as a loss.

“Ryder Cup is very black or white. It’s very simple: You lose or you win. I said to Stevie walking off the golf course today, when I played with Darren Clarke in 2004, we had our butts kicked the first time I ever played, and obviously we’ve had that today.

“But you know what, things can change very quickly, and we have to keep our heads up right now. It didn’t quite work for us on the golf course, but we have to look forward to the matches we’re going to play ahead.”

“This is a tricky golf course and tricky conditions, and I don’t think the scores are as low as what some people are expecting out there. So we have to stay focused, be strong as a team and go out there and deliver. If my role is to play twice or three or four or five times, then whatever I get asked to do, I will go out there and do whatever I’m asked to do.”

Poulter joins Rory McIlroy for this morning’s fourballs, reuniting the pair that turned things around for Europe on that Saturday evening at Medinah. How Poulter could do with another day like that today.

That late summer night in Chicago, Poulter was a man possessed, almost single-handedly dragging his team back from the brink to set up the final day singles fightback.

Does that spark remain, or was all his pre-tournament bluster merely a pretence, a desperate bid to talk himself back to good golf? It didn’t matter. The solution is a simple one for the man who came to Gleneagles with an 80% per cent Ryder Cup win rate from four appearances.

“Obviously my record has been pretty good. So you know, taking a dent this morning, I can shrug that off and look forward to tomorrow. This is a team game and they have to beat 12 of us. It’s not just about singling one or two guys out. This is about us digging in when we need to and that’s exactly what we need to do as a team. I need to hole a few more putts and that’s what I didn’t do today. I left a few putts short, which is very frustrating. But this is a strong team and a team that you’ll see fight very hard right till the end. I would fully expect the guys out on the golf course now that are fresh and ready to go, playing with passion and doing what they do best.”