LIV Golf's Ian Poulter swaps Ferrari for helicopter to avoid 'busy' traffic

LIV Golf League player and Majesticks joint-captain Ian Poulter is taking to the skies for his travel to and from Orange County National this week.

Ben Smith

31 Mar 2023

LIV Golf's Ian Poulter swaps Ferrari for helicopter to avoid 'busy' traffic

Ian Poulter is taking to the skies to travel to and from the LIV Golf League event in Orlando this week.

Poulter, 47, is leaving his fleet of luxury cars at his Florida home in favour of a helicopter to take him to Orange Country National.

The journey would usually take around 40-minutes by car but travelling by air will see the Majesticks joint-skipper's journey reduced to just under 10 minutes.

How the other half live, eh?

Here's the full exchange Poulter had with a reporter in his pre-tournament press conference alongside team-mates Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood and Sam Horsfield:

Q. Ian, you're a big car collector, I assume you're commuting each day here so what's your thought process in terms of which car you decide to drive?

Ian Poulter:

"I've left them all at home today. I know we live very close but we decided to SpeedBird, who help us fly around, had an option to pop in on a helicopter this morning.

"So we're just kind of doing a site visit around Orlando to see if there's any cool areas where we may be able to build a Stix stadium golf course. Took about six minutes door-to-door and made it very easy."

Q. Helicopter every day?

Ian Poulter:

"It's looking like it, yes. Orlando traffic gets pretty busy at home. More time at home will be great."

LIV Golf Orlando is the third event of the breakaway tour's 2023 season.

Poulter finished T-11 in Mayakoba and T-33 in Tucson.

The league commissioned by Greg Norman is going in heavily on their team element in 2023.

It will be an important aspect if the rival tour is to truly succeed and not be reliant on their wealthy Saudi backer, the PIF.

There are rumblings behind-the-scenes that officials are unhappy with the teams' efforts to generate revenue.

This was off the back of reports millions of dollars has been unaccounted for.

The Majesticks are struggling somewhat this year after faring well in LIV's debut 'beta-test' 2022 season.

The all-English side are currently rock bottom of the team standings and are yet to register a single point.

Martin Kaymer's Cleeks and Brooks Koepka's Smash are the two other sides without points in the 2023 campaign.

Unsurprisingly, Dustin Johnson's 4 Aces lead the team standings, followed by Sergio Garcia's Fireballs and Bryson DeChambeau's Crushers.

LIV Golf Orlando will be the last event before 18 'rebel' players head to the 2023 Masters.

Cameron Smith has already come out swinging and is hoping to prove his critics wrong.

Whilst Joaquin Niemann believes the fact the LIV players 'are hated' will simply embolden them.

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Bubba Watson explains hopes for team concept

Watson took the time to explain his vision for the team he skippers, the RangeGoats.

He said:

"At some point, the dream would be to put all the money that we're playing for to be all team money and then have a venue that we call home.

"The RangeGoats, we want a home ourselves.

"We want to have our own venue, maybe host an event there, just like any sports team has a stadium.

"That's kind of what we would call it, have an academy out of there, start some junior golf out of there.

"We all have foundations, but now our team gets behind those foundations and what we're trying to grow for the charity side.

"Yeah, there's a lot of things we're looking at, our team kits to get our outfits to look right when all these contracts kind of run out for clothing deals and everything so that we can all get together and look the same and be a team."

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