Ian Poulter takes the long road to Augusta with exemptions, miscalculations and finally, victory

Ian Poulter’s rollercoaster 12 months finally ended with him taking his place at Augusta, via a rather circuitous route.

The 42-year-old’s win at the Houston Open was the biggest comeback on the PGA Tour for 35 years – a statistic that epitomises his troubled recent career.

Poulter was 123rd on the Houston leaderboard on Friday, but after playing the final three rounds in 20 under, he forced a play-off with a brilliant 20-yard birdie putt at the final regulation hole.

He then beat American rookie Beau Hossler at the first extra hole to claim his first victory since November 2012, his maiden PGA Tour stroke success and secure his participation at this week’s Masters.

The win also moved him back into the world’s top 30, having fallen to 207 in the rankings following the Honda Classic in February last year – seven years after his win at the WGC had lifted him to five in the world.

But less than 12 months ago, his place on the tour was in doubt.

After starting the season on a major medical exemption, he looked to have come up short of retaining his PGA Tour card and was planning for life away from the big events.

Then Brian Gay – who was also playing on the exemption – began running the numbers.

He found an anomaly in the way the Tour was awarding FedEx Cup points – a mistake which had kept them from earning their cards. Once fixed, Poulter was free to play in The Players Championship.

He made the most of the chance in Ponte Vedra, claiming second place to Si Woo Kim, a cheque for £700,000 and his playing privileges for another year.

But while he had his card, his presence at the year’s first men’s major was another story and as recently as two weeks ago, it looked like he had missed out on Augusta by just three-hundredths of a point and a single place in the rankings.

He had thought he’d done enough, having been told that reaching the last eight of last month’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play had booked his place, only to be informed just minutes before his quarter-final blowout to Kevin Kisner that was not the case.

The frustration – at the misinformation and subsequent 8&6 defeat – led Poulter to question whether he would even play at Houston.

“I haven’t decided on that yet,” he said at the time. “It has been a long week and a draining week. I’ll see, I will wait until Monday night. If I think I don’t have the energy then I won’t play.”

When he did show, he played Thursday like all hope was lost. His bags were packed. He expected to miss out.

But then, having been reprieved by Gay’s sharp-eyed numeracy and his Players Championship display, Poulter found his game and pulled one last rabbit out of the hat.

Using the same putter with which he put the United States to the sword at Medinah six years ago, he drained one of the biggest putts of his career, and who would count him out of Augusta reckoning now?

(c) Sky News 2018: Ian Poulter takes the long road to Augusta with exemptions, miscalculations and finally, victory