Luke Poulter would seem to have it easy. The international success of his father, Ian Poulter, allowed him to have access to a plush golf course and practice facilities near their Orlando home. Luke could occasionally hit balls next to other tour players and had a rare vantage point to his father’s Ryder Cup heroics.
Throw in the fast-twitch muscles and hand-eye coordination inherited from a pro-golfer father, and Luke’s rise as a Division I golfer at the University of Florida and place on the Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team could have been considered a lock. Yet it never is, not for any golfer, and not even one as fortunate as Luke. For all of the advantages his position provided his son, Ian Poulter believes it created obstacles as well.
“It’s hard to deal with the pressure,” Ian Poulter said as a guest on the Golf IQ podcast. “You would’ve been brought up in the environment of seeing all the razzle-dazzle and everything that goes on around it. And sometimes even that’s a huge distraction because there’s a personal expectation of thinking, ‘if I don’t achieve what my parents achieved, ‘Am I a failure?’”
While Ian Poulter prepared for another season as co-captain of LIV Golf’s Majesticks, our series of interviews with golf dads focuses less on competitive success and more on a question plenty of golfer parents want answered first:
How did you get your kid to love the game the way you do?
Every worthy model features different ingredients, but if there was one consistent theme, it was starting simple. Even with a player who has developed into an elite talent, Ian Poulter’s initial goal was to give his son a chance to enjoy the golf course, and then to take a step back.
“I’m in a very interesting position as a golfer dad who’s done some fun stuff, and like any parent, if they’re playing a sport, they obviously want their kids to grow up enjoying sport as much as possible because it’s really the backbone of how we learn to be individuals,” Poulter said. “For me it was get a club in his hand as early as possible and see how he likes it, see if he likes it and playing sport in general. And Luke did exactly that. He loved playing football. He loved playing golf and basketball. He loved all of aspects of what sport is. And that’s me as a kid.”
The other important consideration for Poulter is what he didn’t want for his kids. Ian’s path was unique—he played little competitive amateur golf, turned pro as a 4 handicap at age 19, and worked as an assistant pro for several years before scratching his way to the European Tour. He earned every step, whereas Luke faced the opposite challenge of high expectations thanks to his name and background. But it was only when around other junior golfers that Ian recognized other kids might have had it even tougher.
”I’ve caddied in a few tournaments and seen the overbearing parent who loads way too much pressure on their kid, who’s too hard on their kid, and they make them practice long hours. And it seems too much for some of these kids. They’re overpressured to try and be great at a sport,” Ian Poulter said. “Of course I want Luke and [younger brother] Joshua to be as good as they possibly can, and I’m sure I’m hard on them at times, but I just try and be a support system. That’s probably the biggest mistake I see with some parents is they’re trying to live their life through their kid.”
You can listen to the full interview with Ian Poulter on the Golf IQ podcast here:
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
