US TOUR:IAN POULTER found himself with some cleaning up to do when he arrived in Chicago for the third leg of the FedEx Cup play-offs which starts today.
Justin Rose failed to make it through last Sunday, but before he departed Boston he secretly filled Poulter’s golf shoes with talcum powder and did the same inside the head cover of his Ryder Cup partner’s driver.
“Talc explosion when I took the driver out,” Poulter told his Twitter followers. “Gotta love a good practical joke.
“There’s a lot of it on Tour, especially from me. I can’t help it – too much fun. It makes the weeks more entertaining.”
Poulter has some serious business coming up in the BMW Championship, though. Of the 70 players left in, only the top 30 progress to the Tour Championship in Atlanta in two weeks – and he is lying 30th.
While Poulter dropped nine spots last week, Pádraig Harrington’s fourth-place finish in the Deutsche Bank Championship lifted him from 14th to seventh in the standings.
Sunday’s winner Steve Stricker now leads Tiger Woods in the race for the €6.8 million bonus, with the world number one finishing second and 11th in the first two legs.
Among the players who could put Poulter under pressure are Luke Donald, Paul Casey, Brian Davis and Sergio Garcia.
Donald currently lies 32nd and Casey 36th after being forced to sit out the first two weeks of the play-off – and last month’s US PGA Championship – because of his rib muscle injury.
Meanwhile, Jack Nicklaus has singled out Harrington as Woods’ closest current rival.
Woods remains peerless among his contemporaries with 14 major victories, 11 more than Harrington, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh and only four short of Nicklaus’s all-time record.
However, since a knee injury forced him to miss last season’s Open and USPGA, Woods has not won any of golfs premier events.
Harrington took advantage to win the two tournaments in which Woods was absent and with Mickelson playing a reduced schedule due to his wife’s battle with cancer Nicklaus believes the Irishman has proved himself a worthy challenger.
“Tiger is the only one who has been in the middle of it almost every time you turn around,” said the 69-year-old.
“Harrington seems to do a pretty good job of it, certainly in the last couple of years.
“In the heat of the battle he has done very well. Vijay Singh did for a while but Tiger seems to have it pretty much by himself.”
BMW Championship
Course: Cog Hill, Lemont, Illinois.
Par: 71.
Length: 7,616 yards.
Layout: The course, which hosted the tournament for 16 years until 2007, has been completely revamped. There are 18 new greens – a lake now comes dangerously into play on the approach to the last – and the bunkers have been relocated.
Prize money: €5 million with €900,000 going to the winner.
Field: 70
Irish players: Pádraig Harrington.
Champion: Camilo Villegas of Colombia beat Dudley Hart by two shots at Bellerive.
On TV: Eurosport
Weather: Showers with some thunder.
