NORTON, Mass. -- Ian Poulter had clearly been waiting a chance to vent. He unleashed an animated speech that would have made anybody at a U.S. political convention proud.
After a rambling diatribe that lasted about five uninterrupted minutes, during which he lashed out at the British press and campaigned vigorously on his own behalf for a Ryder Cup spot he has not yet landed, it was hard to determine whether he felt better or worse.
"My head's full," he said.
His spleen is empty, though.
After a week in which he's been both criticized and credited with having inside information into who was making the European team, the flashy Englishman vigorously defended his decision to remain in the States to play this week at the Deutsche Bank Championship on the PGA Tour.
Speculation has run rampant on Fleet Street, where the British press has speculated and downright asserted that Poulter has been promised one of the two at-large picks by fellow Brit and captain Nick Faldo, which is why it was assumed that he stayed in the U.S. and skipped playing in Scotland, notions that caused Poulter to nearly go ballistic.
"I can safely say, hand on heart, that I have not been given the nod, just to clear that up once and for all, to stop all of the nonsense that's been in the papers, the nonsense from the players talking," he said.
"I'm disgusted that people, players, media have put what they've put, and have, and would, basically think that Nick Faldo would be that unprofessional to have done such a thing a week before a number of different scenarios could have actually happened. I'm amazed that people would think he would have done that. I know he hasn't done that because I know for a fact I haven't been given the nod.
"So I just think it's pathetic that people can even assume, write or think that that's the case. He's been a professional for the last 30 years of his career and he's not going to start changing that now.
"That, I hope, clears that fact up and underlines it and puts it in a nice box and does whatever it wants to. But that is exactly the truth and nothing but the truth."
So help him, god.
Trouble is, he's been playing like a mortal ever since he finished second at the British Open a month ago, while other candidates have applied the full-court press. Longtime Ryder Cup player Darren Clarke won for the second time this year last weekend and Paul Casey finished two shots out of a playoff at the PGA Tour event, which Faldo watched first-hand as a broadcaster of The Barclays for the Golf Channel and CBS Sports.
Poulter missed the cut at The Barclays, however, and watched with a helpless feeling in his gut as others seemingly passed him on the perceived European pecking order, a feeling he could not possibly describe.
