How to make a twit of yourself

IAN Poulter is an obsessive Twitterer.

That isn’t a disguised description of the flashy golfer’s personality, though he is certainly capable of rubbing people up the wrong way without too much effort.

What it actually refers to is ‘Twitter’, the social networking and micro-blogging phenomenon which, for the blissfully unaware, is a method for distributing brief messages usually describing the author’s thoughts, deeds or whereabouts.

Suffice to say, the service has yet to add much to the sum of human progress. Aristotle and Jean-Paul Satre never got the chance to write a Twitter feed but even if they had, at a guess they would have attempted to dig down into the human condition rather more than Poulter did when he wrote:

“I have more pairs of shoes than I have tee pegs. I’ve lost count now.”

In fairness to golf’s answer to Imelda Marcos, his feed, which he has in the past updated via his mobile phone while on the golf course, occasionally verges on the mildly insightful.

But the fact that he feels the need to update it so often for his “fans” betray a man who doesn’t sell himself short when it comes to assessing his own worth. Poulter doesn’t just embrace the limelight. He takes it out for expensive five-course lunches and whisks it away in fast cars to romantic weekend getaways in the mountains.

Which makes it all the more deliciously ironic is that in the French Open at the weekend, the man who once described himself as Tiger Woods’ main adversary — despite having yet to win a single major — was, presumably for the first time in his career, left complaining about a camera trained on his person as he began his swing on the 15th hole of the final round.

The three shutter clicks from 25 yards away resulted in a tirade from the Brit, who went from being in contention for the Paris title to watching his ball plop into the ‘drink’.

“He’s trying to mess with our livelihoods,” said Poulter. “I’m playing for world ranking points and then you get some idiot. What are you going to do? I’m going to take the tournament off my schedule.”

Well with all of the talking, the posturing, the shoe shopping and the social networking, it was a wonder he had any time to play golf in the first place. Something had to give.


GLENN McGrath has been at it again in the Australian press, winding up the English a treat by predicting a 5-0 Ashes whitewash.

This is the bit where I am supposed to brand the legendary fast bowler a boastful such-and-such and a typical so-and-so.

Thing is though, I have a feeling he might just be on the money. Hopefully it is just nerves ahead of a series which, on paper, appears to be too close to call, but I remember being informed that the Ashes of 2006 was going to be a very tight contest.

And we all know what happened then. The horror, the horror.

mattchambers@oldham-chronicle.co.uk