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The 43-year-old Englishman On His Return To The Dubai Duty-Free Irish Open, The Belief He Can Lift The Claret Jug, What His New Deal With Dp World Means For The Game In The Middle East, The Health Of The European Tour And Being An Easy Target For The World’s Best Golf Impersonator

- Ian Poulter

I’M PLAYING the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, the Scottish Open, then the Open Championship, then straight into the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, so four weeks in a row. Is that too much golf? You know, I haven’t found the winning formula, because I haven’t won a major yet, so for me it’s about balancing the whole season, making sure I’m comfortable with the schedule and just making sure I’m ready to go when it’s time to go. I’ve played where I had two weeks offbefore majors, I’ve done it where I’ve had two weeks’ on before majors. There’s no real right or wrong way of doing it.

I’VE NOT PLAYED the new Dubai Duty Free Irish Open venue, Lahinch Golf Club. Generally, when it comes to a situation like that, I feel particularly relaxed. I love when golf is relatively straightforward, in its natural form. Links golf, to me, is very, very enjoyable to play, so just to have that, to have the opportunity to play three weeks of links golf is great.

FOR ME, IT’S ABOUT getting used to the green complexes at Lahinch, the type of slopes, and feeling fresh and ready to go. It’s not something where I feel like I need to play 18 holes Tuesday, 18 holes Wednesday, to feel ready to on play. I’ll just play the Pro-Am and go for it.

WINNING THE HOUSTON OPEN on the PGA Tour last year gave me a lot of confidence. When you put yourself in that situation and you ask yourself a question, it’s all about can you come up with the answer? Being able to come up with the answer was a big step forward.