Ian Poulter: I was miserable after rankings slide... so Houston win under all that pressure was my best ever

“I absolutely hated it.” The words spit out from Ian Poulter’s mouth as he reflects on his alarming slump from the fifth-best golfer in the world to a lowly 208th.

“I was miserable,” he said continuing the theme. “There’s no other way to put it. If any professional sportsman tells you they’re enjoying their slump they’re full of s***. It was awful.”

Poulter has always had a frankness about him but makes no secrets of the bleakness that began with a foot injury ruling him out of contention for the last Ryder Cup, the event at which the 42-year-old has so often been the beating heart of the European charge.

A dip in form continued into 2017 and he only just retained his PGA Tour card. What followed was a complete “reshuffle” of his life, involving erasing his clothing line to clear his mind for golf — and only golf. He also cut ties with agency IMG and returned to his former agent Paul Dunkley, even changing his accountants and booking team as part of a “full refresh”.

“I needed to simplify things off the golf course and declutter,” he said. “It’s a bit like my school report always was. If I’m able to concentrate, I can do a great job. Now I can just focus on the job in hand.”

It has seen him climb up into the world’s top 30, while he led last month’s US Open after the first round and there was a first win in six years, a victory which saw him sneak into the Masters field. He is also not far outside one of the eight Ryder Cup qualification spots.

“The first win [dating back to the Italian Open in 2000] is always special but winning the Houston Open [in April] was the best win by far,” he said. “With all the factors around it: the Masters prospect, the six years since a last win, the Ryder Cup points, all that pressure. I don’t think I’ve had so much going on around my other wins.”

Also gone are the protestations that he would be world No1. Instead, Poulter has stripped everything bare: “For the rest of the season, I’m just aiming to enjoy my golf.

“It’s not about having to do this or that. If I’m enjoying it, I feel refreshed and ready. Sure, you’ll get stretches of holes where it’s not going your way but you just weather the storm.

“All I can wish for at the moment is golf enjoyment.”

Such an outlook is understandable for the difficulties he has encountered with his game, while he is not to everyone’s taste because of his occasional brashness, which was made clear by the Shinnecock crowd at the US Open habitually heckling him.

He is not ashamed to admit: “There are moments you fear you’ll never get back to the top as your plummeting down the world rankings for a reason. But you don’t lose your golf game overnight, there’s reasons for it. It was about addressing that.”

Continuing the school report analogy, it is not a lesson he wants to repeat as he heads towards the Open at Carnoustie, an event in which he has got closest to winning a Major with two top-three finishes.

“I still have quirks to my game and flaws, I still make mistakes,” he said. “But I now understand what it’s like to be up and down there. It’s given me not just a good golf lesson but a life lesson.”

As if to give him further motivation on the climb back, last month he visited Le Golf National, the course for September’s Ryder Cup, on the eve of the French Open.

The ensuing weeks are built around qualifying for Thomas Bjorn’s side and not being consigned to the role of non-playing vice-captain — as he was last time on American soil.

“It’s five back-to-back weeks of playing, and that’s tough,” he said, with the Open sandwiched within a quintet of Euro-American tournaments. “There are a lot of points available.

“I’d like to make the team on merit and not to have Thomas to be under pressure to pick me as a wildcard. I feel the way I’m playing I can make it.”

He and Bjorn are close friends and the Dane is in contact whenever Poulter is well-placed on the leaderboard but he does not expect any favours from the 47-year-old.

The perfect way to land a Ryder Cup berth would be to be break his duck in the Majors by winning The Open.

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” said Poulter, whose passion for the Ryder Cup cannot be matched.

“I might have led the US Open but I ended up finishing 25th. That’s nothing. Things have been good the last six months but I need to put a big shift in.”