Ian Poulter Wants the Media to Stop Making Him Play Poorly

Ian Poulter might want to spend more time honing his game and making paradigm-shifting fashion statements, and less time blaming the media for his poor play. It's very unbecoming.

But after Poulter missed the cut at this week's Deutsche Bank Championship, the second leg of the FedEx Cup, he promptly identified the culprit for his indifferent performance: the clowns in the media tent distracting us all with the Colin-Ian Ryder Cup cat fight.

Poulter said he was exhausted after his week, which only lasted two rounds, and he blamed the media on both sides of the Atlantic for making the week harder than it should have been. "It's been a very long week, and I think a lot of misspent energy has been taken up by obvious press -- media, players, everybody. It's just so mentally draining to be in this position, to listen, to read, to hear all the B.S. this week. I'm spent. I'm exhausted. I didn't want to finish the last two tournaments like this."

I mentioned yesterday that Colin Montgomerie wasn't all that jazzed about Poulter telling him what to do in regards to the Ryder Cup. The typical response to Monty's whining is that, well, Monty's a whiner, that's his shtick.

But I'll give the guy credit: for all the bellyaching he does -- both inside and outside the ropes -- he backs it up. Montgomerie's arguably one of the best Ryder Cuppers in the history of the event, which makes it easy to put up with all the histrionics between shots. Poulter, on the other hand, has all the focus of a two-year-old in a toy store. Which is to say: he's all over the place.

If Poulter has anything going for him, at least as it relates to being Ryder Cup-hardened, it's that he's seldom distracted by all the ancillary goings-on. And by "seldom" I mean "always," of course.