Perhaps you’ve heard about Ian Poulter’s altercation with a marshal at the Scottish Open? (It was in the Morning 9!)

A first point: The marshal in question wasn’t some mere jabroni. In its discussion of the encounter, the Telegraph refers to Quintin Jardine as a “celebrated crime author.” Now, he’s not topping the bestseller lists here in the States, but he is an established author.

This, of course, could work either for or against Mr. Jardine. On the one hand, he’s a perceptive, articulate, respectable fellow. On the other, he has an incentive for self promotion to promote his works…“Did you like my Poulter blog post? You’ll love my latest novel!”

Anyway, here’s the sequence of events.

Jardine posted to his blog (and tweeted a link to) a work of original non-fiction: His account of a run-in with Ian Poulter while working as a Marshal during Saturday’s third round. Poulter had just pulled a drive into a bush near where Jardine was doing his duties.

His blog post read (he’s since deleted the post) in part:

“Mr Poulter…arrived in a shower of expletives and asked me where his ball was,” wrote Jardine. “I told him and said that I had not ventured into the bush for fear of standing on it. I wasn’t expecting thanks, but I wasn’t expecting aggression either.

“He told me in essence that I should have, his reasoning being that if I stood on the ball it was a free drop, whereas if he did it was a penalty… He (later) came back at me and said again that next time … I should go straight in there feet first.”

The implication, of course, is that Jardine believed Poulter was asking him to stomp around in the bush for the ball, suggesting that if he (the marshal) were to dislodge it, Poults would be entitled to a free drop.

This was not Poulter’s recollection of events, and he took to Twitter to respond, disputing the insinuation that he was trying to cheat and more.

Disappointing. Clearly misunderstood my explanation. pic.twitter.com/YcKHMPf2v7

— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) July 15, 2018

A point of note: What Poulter said to Jardine at the time may be another issue, but he is correct in tweeting that if the ball was kicked or stepped on during he search, he’s entitled to replace it (per Rule 18-4), which is certainly not the same thing as a free drop. He would seem to be incorrect in saying he’d be penalized, however, as a search was underway…however, an overly zealous reading of the rule could have left Poulter in hot water, had he moved the ball, so it would have been an easier situation to deal with had a fan or marshal accidentally contacted the projectile.

The crime author deleted his original blog post and posted a follow up July 15 that says in part.

“Seems that Mr Poulter has disputed my account of our exchange yesterday. Now I’m having email abuse from pond life and bottom feeders. I don’t need that.”

“The only way I can get rid of it is by deleting the original post. In retrospect I should probably have kept the dispute private, but it’s out of the box now, and I must rely on the Tour to make a judgement.”

“Mr Poulter has gone public to his two million Twitter followers with his version of events. All I can say is that I stand by mine and at no time did I ever utter the words ‘OK thanks.’”

What do you think about this he-said, he-said, GolfWRX members?