It’s a wonder Ian Poulter can find any time in the day to spike up his hair. When he’s not playing golf, he seems to be constantly twittering on about this, that the other on his twitter page.

This is what he twittered (twitter.com/ianjamespoulter) but didn’t say to reporters after his first round on Thursday. “Level par just doesn’t sound right after playing so well. Oh well shit happens.” And this after his second round of -2. “Sitting on the sofa, feet up, watching the golf, diet coke in hand. The wind has got up. It’s going to be fun to watch.

I even know what Poulter had for breakfast: raisin bran, two poached eggs on toast, bowl of fruit, cup of tea, glass of fresh orange. “Happy days” Poulter twittered. “Friday is about to begin. Come on!”

The bran flakes clearly got him up and running fast (sorry about that). He got to -3 before the Curse of the Association of Golf Writers struck him down. As soon as I caught him up at the 17th (his eighth), wham, bogey, then bam, double bogey at the 10th. He missed the fairway, then flew across the green into the rough, then stabbed a chip two yards further into the rough, then scuttled the next chip four feet passed the hole and missed the putt. Phew. “I made a little bit of a mental error on the par chip, hit it too hard,” he said. I made a mental
error forgetting about the Curse. I stopped watching to give him a chance to recover.

Curse duly lifted, Poulter bagged two birdies coming in to get into a top-10 position going into the weekend. “It’s just a shame I didn’t take advantage of the par fives today,” he said behind the 18th green. “I just think that a couple of par fives out there which may only be in range for probably five
players.”

Back in the house he is sharing with Ross Fisher and Graeme McDowell, Poulter is getting a pasting from Fisher playing tennis on their Xbox. “He’s killing me. “He’s doin my head in,” Poulter said. “I will slap him if he keeps doing it,” he twittered.

And with that he disappeared into the clubhouse to eat and tweet. Feet up, laptop on, golf on, just been fed, had my massage, might dose off on the sofa. That’s Poulter, not me.