The flashy Ian Poulter, it turns out, came upon his greatness on the golf course in a very (for golf) non-traditional way: Not at the country club, not on the junior golf circuit, but on the public courses and in the pro shops. Earning a few bucks here and there, earning golf balls by driving better players to the airport, turning professional with a handicap of ... four?

Alistair Tate's feature on Ian Poulter in Golfweek lays on the Horatio Alger a little thick, but it's still an interesting read. Poulter's background is very different from what most of us would have guessed:

Later, when contemporaries such as Luke Donald, Paul Casey and David Howell were learning their craft on the British amateur circuit, Poulter was peddling sleeves of balls and vacuuming the shop as an assistant pro at his hometown Family Golf Centre, where he earned £3.20 per hour ($5.60).

“I didn’t have the chance to play full-time amateur golf like some other kids because my parents couldn’t afford it,” said Poulter, who played at Stevenage, a local municipal golf club.

Just as he followed brother Danny down to Stevenage Market, he also followed him into the golf business. At age 18 and playing off a handicap of 4, Ian turned professional with a “vague notion” of perhaps becoming a tournament professional.

That notion became stronger when he won the 1995 Panshanger Classic in Welwyn Garden City, Nick Faldo’s birthplace. When Poulter took the trophy back to the Family Golf Centre and set it on the counter, his boss told him to remove it.

“It was a kick in the ribs,” he recalled.

Poulter was so hard up in those days that he couldn’t afford golf balls to play in tournaments, so he struck a deal with former European Tour pro Mark Litton, also from Hitchin. Poulter earned a dozen Titleist Professional 90s every time he drove Litton to the airport during the 1995 season.

“It was a pretty good deal for Mark, because he was probably getting three or four dozen balls a week for free,” Poulter said. “It was a big deal for me, though, because I had to pay for my own balls and couldn’t afford them.”

Thanks goodness he can now afford those ridiculous outfits.

Speaking of which, the Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup team uniforms were unveiled recently and they are, alas, boring. Or just as expected on the Ladies Golf Union's original plan to hire Poulter's design company to create the uniforms went by the wayside. No Union Jack down one pant leg or anything like that. Perhaps the GB&I girls should all go peroxide-and-spiky to lament Ian's lack of involvement.