Ian Poulter is targeting a lucrative first appearance in the season-ending Tour Championship after continuing his renaissance in the US PGA Championship.
After playing just 13 tournaments last year due to a foot injury, Poulter had 10 events this season to earn enough FedEx Cup points or money to retain a full PGA Tour card.
He came up short in both categories after missing the cut in the Valero Texas Open in April but American Brian Gay, who was also playing on a medical exemption after back problems, then alerted officials to a discrepancy in the points structure used for players competing in that category.
Poulter made the most of his reprieve by finishing second in the Players Championship on his next start and has not missed a halfway cut since, finishing 14th in the Open at Royal Birkdale and 22nd at Quail Hollow.
Such performances have lifted the 41-year-old from outside the world's top 200 earlier this year to 58th, while he is 46th in the FedEx Cup standings.
The top 30 after the first three play-off events – which get under way next week – qualify for the Tour Championship in Atlanta, where a US$10m bonus is on offer for the overall winner.
"From the start of the season to where I stand right now is miles apart, from a mental standpoint, from a playing standpoint," Poulter said. "I feel like kind of the old me is back, which is nice. I can be aggressive.
"This week was a disappointment. I'm walking away needing a break, needing a bit of a rest and to refresh for the play-offs. I've never gone right the way through the play-offs properly. I'd like to do that this time around, which would be ironic, compared to how I was standing four months into the season."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here