The PGA Tour’s 10 Biggest Disappointments of 2021/22
By Bill Felber
5. Ian Poulter
How much worse? (0.857 strokes)
Poulter is the first of three members of the bottom five in terms of change in stroke average who flipped from the PGA Tour to the LIV Tour during 2022.
That being so, it’s fair to ask whether the three recognized the decline in their games and opted for the security of guaranteed Saudi money as opposed to chancing further failure on Tour.
In his case, that decline measured 0.857 strokes, from 70.221 in 2020-21 to 71.078 this season. In real terms that amounted to a fall of nearly 100 places, from 27th to 123rd.
Here’s Poulter’s chart.
2020-21 2021-22 Change
Off The Tee -0.079 -0.219 -0.140
Approaches -0.162 -0.217 -0.055
Around the Green 0.364 0.251 -0.113
Putting 0.695 0.468 -0.227
For Poulter, there was no single problem in 2022; rather, everything went measurably, if not profoundly, bad.
Nowhere was that more so than the one aspect he had always leaned on, his putting game. Since he was a youngish pro in 2008, Poulter’s Strokes Gained putting numbers have always been positive. They still were in 2022, but they were still off more than a quarter stroke.
The rest of Poulter’s game was not strong enough to withstand the loss in putting touch. His normally strong recovery game also declined, and his usual weaknesses – off the tee and approaching the green – worsened.
That left Poulter with no viable avenue other than parachuting onto the LIV Tour.