Friday 6 April 2018 21:31, UK
Ian Poulter revealed his group had twice been put on the clock during the second round of the Masters.
Playing in a three-ball alongside American Patrick Cantlay, whose lengthy pre-shot routine recently came in for criticism during the Genesis Open, and South African Trevor Immelman, Poulter carded a three-over 75 which left him flirting with the cut on five over at the halfway stage.
Being placed on the clock for slow play can be a distraction for some players, but Poulter insisted it did not affect him.
He said: "I think as a group we were slow, but I'm not going to say the reasons why we were slow. I'm going to say 'we'. Let me just generalise and say 'we'. Just to keep that clean.
"I'm quite happy to be on the clock every hole of my life, it doesn't affect me. When you're too slow, you need to speed up, end of conversation.
"I'm not going to call foul. Unless you stand on the 12th and 11th and you get a big wind switch, that's when, obviously it's going to get tricky.
"So I mentioned to the lads, we need to get off this clock coming up 12. And we did. But quite quickly we fell back on the clock. So we rightly should have been back on it.
"It's never going to affect my golf, so I'm fine. And I know I'm quick enough. That's all I'm saying."
Poulter admitted fatigue has understandably been a factor for him this week after earning a last-minute invitation to Augusta National following his play-off success at the Houston Open on Sunday.
"I was always going to be fatigued. I'm never going to be fresh, am I, coming into this week," added Poulter, who mixed five birdies with six bogeys and one double-bogey in his second round.
"I'm under-prepared, I got here Tuesday afternoon, I needed to have a day off from Monday, from a practice perspective, yeah, I'm under practiced, I didn't get many holes in. I got 18 kind of quick holes in.
"But it's a long week, I hope it's a bit longer. I know this golf course, so there's not really anything I needed to learn."
