ENGLISHMAN IAN POULSTER believes 2013 may be the year he breaks his Masters duck.
Poulter’s seventh-place finish at Augusta last year was a career-best and the 37-year-old says he is full of confidence ahead of this year’s tournament.
“I feel very good about my game right now. I’ve played five events since the start of the year, and played last week, something slightly different. I’ve never played the week before the Masters,” Poulter said.
“I’ve always had a couple of weeks off. But I wanted to kind of get another tournament in before coming here so I could be match sharp. And although I didn’t finish the week off well last week, I feel that I’m ready this week. I’ve hit the right shots in practice.
“I feel that how I’ve looked at the golf course in terms of statistics, how I’ve played the course the number of years I have, I generally play it pretty well. You know, I’m kind of fired up to play well again this year and try and slip one of those jackets on come Sunday.”
World number three Justin Rose, who has made the cut in all seven of his previous appearances at Augusta with a best finish of fifth in 2007, believes he too has what it takes to win the green jacket.
“I feel it’s a golf course, like I say, I’ve played some good rounds of golf, and when you’ve done that you have some confidence that you can do it again,” Rose said.
“It’s all about putting it together and I think a lot of that does come with experience here. So I feel like it is a course that I can win on. I think it suits a lot of players though.”
Despite world number one Tiger Woods and number two Rory McIlroy often stealing the headlines, Rose said he hopes to one day take the top ranking. Obviously the notion of being the best player in the world is exciting, and when you get as far as number three in the world you want to entertain that,” he said.
“I’m under no illusions (that) that’s going to be difficult, but I have eight years of great golf ahead of me. It’s a possibility in my career and something I’ll be striving to achieve.”
