When you’re 21 years old and Dad wants to hang with you and your friends for dinner, the reaction could be a mix of guilt and horror. Unless your father is a continent’s fiery golf hero and your buddies have looked up to him for as long as they’ve been swinging a club.
So Luke Poulter was not the least embarrassed this week when his father was the most recognized dad in the room as Great Britain & Ireland’s team enjoyed a bonding barbecue dinner ahead of the 50th Walker Cup Match against the United States that begins Saturday.
This two-day competition, set to be highly memorable among the pines and crashing waves at Cypress Point Club, is the amateur version of the professional Ryder Cup, and in the latter event’s history, Ian Poulter has been a lightning-rod figure—loved by his teammates for his fierceness, eye-bulging celebrations and throat-stomping success (with a 15-8-2 record), and despised by some U.S. fans for the very same reasons.
Poulter has been particularly beastly in singles, going unbeaten with a 6-0-1 mark, and he’s gulped the champagne and paraded around as the winner of the Cup in five of the seven times he’s played for it.
Ian Poulter celebrates during the 2012 Ryder Cup. [Mike Ehrmann]
Perhaps no Ryder Cup performance by Poulter is more memorable than fist-pumping defeat of then-reigning U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson as part of Europe’s stunning Sunday comeback in 2012 to beat the U.S. at Medinah.
Given that lore, the current GB&I members were happy to hang on the elder Poulter’s every word as they relaxed while eating burgers, throwing darts, watching U.S. Open tennis and playing ping-pong.
“It’s a strange kind of setting in a sense, because I’ve gotten to know Luke away from that,” said GB&I member Cameron Adam, a 22-year-old from Scotland who completed his college career at Northwestern in June. “His dad is someone I’ve grown up watching, like watching Ryder Cups. It’s kind of one of the large reasons that people get to these stages and get excited for it. To kind of be in that situation and compete and put a display like he has is pretty awesome.
“It’s cool to hear messages from someone that you’ve looked up to, but at the same time, I feel like we all received them in the same way,” Adam added. “We’ve all got the same mission, and it’s to go out there and do the business over the weekend.”
GB&I’s Niall Shiels Donegan, who is Scottish born and grew up in Mill Valley, Calif., said that dinner with Poulter was “really special.” Teammate Tyler Weaver, a 20-year-old Englishman who plays against Luke Poulter at rival Florida State, offered, “Being able to talk to [Ian] about the Ryder Cup and his experiences, having the chance to ask him questions and what it means and how to play these events, how to deal with the pressure, has been so important.”
We don’t know exactly what Ian Poulter, who never played in a Walker Cup, said to the players, but it sounds as if it was similar to what he’s preached to his son in the buildup. It’s been so far, so good for Luke, who made three eagles, including a hole-in-one, in a practice round on Thursday.
Luke Poulter lines up a putt on the fifth hole during a practice round of the 2025 Walker Cup at Cypress Point. [Logan Whitton]
“That we’re on away soil, so it’s really tough, statistically tougher for us to win than on home soil,” Luke Poulter said. “But when we step up on that first tee, that all goes away. Our games are ready to play and we’re ready to take on the test that’s in front of us.”
The younger Poulter also recalled what his dad has told him about the European victory that’s been dubbed “The Miracle at Medinah.” “They were in a dark spot throughout the team and in the group they were down. Just like never give up; anything can happen,” Luke said. “All you need is a little bit of momentum and the other team can get also back in a dark spot.”
It was the Americans who came from being down heading into Sunday two years ago at St. Andrews to triumph, and GB&I is looking for its first Walker Cup victory since 2015 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. It hasn’t won in the U.S. since 2001 at Ocean Forest Golf Club in Georgia.
For anyone who’s seen Luke Poulter play in events such as the U.S. Amateur, he is far less demonstrative than his dad. Nor, as he noted himself on Friday, does he go for flashy outfits or spikey hair. He’s got an easy-going demeanor and looks like your typical blond American boy who grew up on a beach somewhere—in his case, Florida.
Luke was 8 years old when his father led Europe’s charge at Medinah, and he only knows about it from watching videos to get inspired. He does love his dad’s, uh, enthusiasm.
“It’s pretty cool. Just shows how passionate he is about it and how much it means to all those guys,” Poulter said. “They all do it, and you’ve got Rory [McIlroy] and Patrick Reed going at it, so it’s pretty cool to see.
“I don’t have quite that in me,” he added with a grin, “but we’ll see this week, maybe I’ll throw some fist pumps and get the crowd going.”
