http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/sports/golf/ian-poulter-is-europes-ryder-cup-lightning-rod-in-a-visor.html 2014-09-26 00:09:05 Ian Poulter Is Europe’s Ryder Cup Lightning Rod, in a Visor At Gleneagles, all eyes are on Poulter as he tries to reprise his role as Ryder Cup hero against the American team when play starts Friday. === GLENEAGLES, Scotland — There is Team Europe at this Ryder Cup, but there is also Team Poulter: four British fans of varying ages who were on hand for Thursday’s final practice session. They were sporting spiky, frosted wigs attached to visors in honor of Ian Poulter, and they were as fired up as their inspiration. “Bought them on the Internet two weeks ago,” Ray McIver, a 61-year-old from Newcastle, said with a cackle. “All I had to do was Google ‘Poulter Wigs.’ Five pound, 99. It keeps your head warm.” That could come in handy in Scotland. Poulter himself is sporting a more sedate, monochrome hairstyle for this Cup, but he still has the visor and the aura. “Mr. Ryder Cup,” said David Howell, a former teammate. Poulter was the miracle-maker-in-chief at Medinah Country Club two years ago, hoisting the slumping European team onto his wiry frame and The Americans sound as if they have been throwing darts at Poulter photographs ever since. “I lost two matches to Poulter at Medinah, so I would love to play him again, try to get those points back,” Webb Simpson said. The American players almost always call him Poulter and very rarely Ian. He is the sort of rival who seems best held at arm’s length even if he now lives with his family in Orlando, Fla., and plays primarily on the PGA Tour. But Simpson will not get the chance to make up points on Poulter right away. Friday morning’s That last contest was termed the main event by the United States captain, Tom Watson, but it probably won’t be the loudest match of the morning: not with Gallacher, the only Scot in the Ryder Cup, paired with Poulter, the extrovert who stirs the European drink. “We’ve got a Scottish crowd that is going to be very vociferous and we all know who rises to those kinds of occasions,” said Paul McGinley, the European captain. “Ian is ready to go, and he’s strong.” Poulter is 12-3 in his four Ryder Cups. He has been the leading European point-scorer in the last three events, and he has presumably led the team in delivering back slaps, one-liners and fist pumps, the latter tendency being an occasional point of contention with his American opponents. “Everybody’s got their own DNA and everybody fist pumps in their own way,” Poulter said. “It’s not disrespectful in any way, shape or form. I feel that I’ve done it in a way that is natural to me.” He is now frequently packed into the same paragraph with past inspirational European Ryder Cuppers like Seve Ballesteros and Colin Montgomerie. And it came as no surprise that he was singled out this week by Watson as the player the American team was targeting. “I take that as a compliment,” Poulter said. Yet it remains unclear whether he is truly ready to go this time. He has had a middling season by his standards with only three Top-10 finishes and is hardly dodging the issue. When he analyzed each of the European players in “He’s been beyond useless all season but look at that Ryder Cup record. I can promise you this: he’s pumped, he’s ready and the postman is keen and eager to make another delivery.” Perhaps. But match-winning form is surely not something that can be flipped on like a light switch. Inspiration and love of country (or in this unusual case, continent) can work on occasion but surely not on every occasion, particularly when Ryder Cup pressure has a way of turning cracks into clean breaks. Montgomerie, the portly (again) Scot who was Europe’s leader for many of his eight Ryder Cups, found form in a hurry in some of those matches. But he was also a leading golfer on the European tour week to week and finished second or tied for second in five major championships. Ballesteros, the Spaniard who Poulter, with 16 professional tournament victories and one second-place finish at a major, does not punch in the same weight class as Montgomerie, Ballesteros or even his current teammates Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood. But if he is being judged over three days every two years, he is certainly among the elite, and that is also because he truly embraces the occasion while many others simply talk about embracing it. “I’m not sure whether I transform,” he said. “I’m not quite a transformer. But I love it, and I enjoy what it stands for, and I embrace that.” While the Americans are not ready to hug him back, Team Poulter stands willing and ready. The four men, including Ray McIver and his son Michael, were shouting Poulter’s name as he swaggered toward the seventh tee Thursday. He ignored their shouts and extended visors for a time, but he finally turned their way, put both his fists together and gave them all a big-eyed fist pump. “A bad hair day but a great day,” Ray McIver said. That has long been Poulter’s winning Ryder Cup formula. High time to find out whether it will work again at Gleneagles.