Englishman Ian Poulter says a close friendship with Australia’s Adam Scott won’t need to be put aside when they battle for the Australian Masters title on Sunday.
The tournament’s two top-ranked players chatted together as they surged away from the rest of the field in Saturday’s third round at Melbourne’s Kingston Heath.
And while Scott is seemingly the only player with a realistic chance of preventing Poulter successfully defending his Masters title, the Englishman said things were unlikely to change on Sunday.
“We’re good friends, we’ve played a lot of golf together, we’ve dined together so much, we spend a lot of time together,” Poulter said.
“It’s nice to play with someone you know really really well. You can feed off them as much as they feed off you.
“I think that’s exactly what we did today, there was a great vibe on the course.
“There were good shots being played, nice putts being holed and it’s always nice to be in a good two-ball like that.”
While Poulter is a renowned matchplay performer, he said he would not be viewing Sunday’s final round that way, at least until the final few holes, in case someone else shot up from the trailing pack.
That seems extremely unlikely.
With Poulter on 13-under par and Scott on 12 under, the next best-placed golfer is Queensland’s Matthew Guyatt, six shots behind the leader.
Bookmakers certainly don’t rate his or anyone else’s chances of upstaging the star pair.
While Scott and Poulter are both at short-priced odds, the likes of Guyatt and fourth-placed New Zealander Mark Brown are listed around the $70 mark.