As the US Open teed off on Thursday morning at Pinehurst, LIV Golf‘s most recent tour stop in Houston was making headlines for a much different reason. LIV pro Ian Poulter went viral for his heated exchange with a fan, dropping multiple F-bombs in a NSFW video that ironically summed up LIV’s motto: “Golf, But Louder.”
Ian Poulter curses out a golf fan on LIV Tour
Poulter told the fan to be quiet in stereotypically polite British fashion mixed with his prickly attitude: “I suggest you shut the f*ck up.”
According to Drunk By The Turn, the account that published the video on X, formerly Twitter, the same fan had been harassing Poulter throughout the round, with the video only capturing the 48-year-old’s reaction to the third incident of unsportsmanlike behavior.
“Next time he’s out,” the Englishman said pointedly toward course security.
It was a bad look on both sides for the LIV Golf Tour, for allowing the behavior and for the response by one of its biggest names. Poulter, a 5-time Ryder Cup winner with three PGA Tour wins to his name, signed with LIV for a reported $20 million payday.
Major update on PGA-LIV merger ahead of US Open
The dueling golf leagues have been inching toward a merger for a year since they reached an agreement in June 2023 to unite. More progress was made in the days between Poulter’s incident and the start of the US Open, with PGA Tour Enterprises and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund coming together to sign a “draft agreement,” according to Alan Shipnuck, the biographer of Phil Mickelson.
Poulter would leave a lot of money behind, but a potential merger could at least be his ticket to leaving this pestering fan behind.