Poulter on the brink at RBC Heritage

Ian Poulter’s father, Terry, is in from the UK to watch his son play the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town. So far, he’s gotten quite a show.

Poulter extended his bogey-free streak to 45 straight holes and is in position to win for the second time in three weeks after a third-round 67 on Saturday. This, despite the fact that he’s playing for the sixth week in a row and normally spends no more than three straight weeks on the road.

‘I’m surprised I’m still awake, to be honest,’ Poulter said. ‘Six weeks in a row. Normally after three, I’m begging for a week off… My dad said I’ve never had so much sleep before.’

Luke List (67) and Si Woo Kim (68) will join Poulter in the final threesome Sunday at 9am. Tee times have been moved up, and players will go off of split tees in order to get done around 2pm. Potentially ahead of the anticipated thunderstorms.

Poulter has not made a bogey since the 9th of the first round, and he is only two weeks removed from a resounding victory at the Houston Open, where at one point he played 49 holes without a bogey on the way to his third PGA TOUR win. His recent consistency notwithstanding, few careers have seen more ups and downs than Poulter’s over the last year and a half.

‘There’s been quite a lot of lows in the last 18 months,’ he said.

Lows, as in his lowest ranking: 207th after The Honda Classic last season. (He’s back up to 31st.) Lows, as in thinking he’d lost his TOUR card after missing the cut at the Valero Texas Open last season, when it appeared that he had not fulfilled the terms of his Major Medical Extension from a 2016 foot injury. (As it turned out, the math was wrong. He had done enough, after all.)

A T2 finish at THE PLAYERS Championship secured Poulter’s TOUR status for 2018, and he has kicked his game into another gear this season. After going back to the putter he used to spark Europe’s comeback at the 2012 Ryder Cup, Poulter finished T5 at the World Golf Championship-Dell Technology Match Play. He won the Houston Open a week later, earning him an eleventh-hour invitation to the Masters. Now he’s fighting through fatigue and conjuring up some of his best golf.

‘I needed something to change on the greens,’ he said of the Medinah putter, with which he has ranked seventh in strokes gained: putting this week. ‘Going back to something that I couldn’t blame, with a putter that you know has done some great things in the past, there’s no excuses.’

South African Tyrone van Aswegen sits in a share of 32nd place after he fired a 66 joining Byeong Hun An, Charley Hoffman and Kevin Kisner for the low round of the day.

European Tour member Dylan Frittelli’s run in the US is looking set to reap another substantial payday after the Mauritius Open winner carded a 67 to move up into 20th place, 12 places behind Rory Sabbatini.

Sabatini led after round one and is now four behind Poulter heading into Sunday’s final round.

Photo: Getty Images