R&A to sanction Poulter? McIlroy thinks not
The Gulf News has been getting itself into a tizzy over Ian Poulter’s twitter “attack” on the Rules of Golf.
Like many of his peers, the Englisman was not best pleased with the Dimplegate Affair that saw Padraig Harrington disqualified from the Abu Dhabi Championship after a tip off from a viewer/the Couch Potato Police.
Poulter tweetAccording to the Golf News, McIlroy agrees with Poulter and does not believe his Ryder Cup team mate will be taken to task by the men at St Andrews. The European Tour quickly ruled out taking any action.
Ashley Hammond reports:
McIlroy said of Poulter’s post, “I saw it and I agree with Poulter, some rules are completely out of date and need updating.
“You can’t have people rewinding something on TV and phoning in. It’s not right. Some rules are very back in time the R&A [The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews — golf’s governing body] are getting better at going with the times but…”
Unsurprisingly, The European Tour doesn’t want to know:
The European Tour issued a statement to Gulf News in reaction to Poulter’s post which refused to comment on the issue as the statement was a matter of opinion not fact. They said it did not involve the event or the Tour and so it was a matter for the R&A to address.
And McIlroy doesn’t think there is a case to answer either:
“Definitely not, everyone’s got the right to their own opinion, there’s such a thing as freedom of speech, you can say whatever you want — has he crossed the line? Not at all and will twitter be banned? No.”
McIlroy, who himself got in trouble on twitter last year for calling former Blackburn Rovers footballer Robbie Savage ‘a T-word’ added, “I think twitter is great it helps you interact with fans and it lets them see how you interact with the other players. … I called him [Robbie Savage] a T-word because he was saying something to Poulter online that I didn’t really like — obviously you don’t want kids seeing that so I made my apologies I shouldn’t have used that word.
“We all make mistakes. We’re human after all, even if we are meant to be professional sports people. We may live in a gold fish bowl, but we are allowed to make same mistakes everyone else,” McIlroy said.
The Gulf News still wonders if this is the last we’ve heard of all this”
Poulter’s comments come just off the back of Liverpool winger Ryan Babel’s fine for bringing the game (of football) into disrepute when he posted a picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt following their 1-0 FA Cup defeat.
If the Football Association has such poor sense of humour one can only imagine the cut-off point of golf’s governing body.