Ian Poulter had a blast from the past at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship as he walked the fairways of Yas Links wearing clothing from his former apparel company.
Poulter wore some of his old IJP Design gear almost six years after the company closed, with the DP World Tour previously requesting players from LIV to not wear branding from the Saudi-backed series in its events.
He wore a Majesticks GC logo, his LIV Golf team, during the BMW PGA Championship but there were no signs of that logo in Abu Dhabi.
“This is a business that I actually own part of, so it has a right to be there,” he said at Wentworth in September. “I have had about six different sets of clothes in the last five weeks. I can’t possibly go to the embroiderers and have another set made up for this week. I am here for three weeks. I’m travelling, so this was the set I brought.”
The Englishman formed the IJP Design brand in 2017, with it lasting 10 years before closing due to the “ever increasingly competitive landscape.”
Poulter wearing IJP Design in Abu Dhabi
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“We have been unable to justify its continuation after many years of investing in the business and a number of attempts to reshape it against an ever increasingly competitive landscape,” Poulter said in 2017.
Following his T60 finish in Abu Dhabi, the 12-time European Tour winner wrote on Instagram that it was “so nice” to wear some of his old apparel.
(Image credit: Instagram @ianjamespoulter)
The Ryder Cup legend signed a lucrative deal with LIV Golf last year and has since been playing on both the Saudi-backed start-up circuit and the DP World Tour, although this week’s Dubai Desert Classic could potentially be his last ever start on the former European Tour.
The European-based tour is currently embroiled in a court case with LIV, with a decision set to come next month on whether LIV players can continue to play.
If they’re not allowed, it would also mean that the likes of Poulter, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Paul Casey and Sergio Garcia would not be eligible for future Ryder Cups.
Poulter’s next starts are set to come this week in Dubai, the week after in Saudi Arabia on the Asian Tour and then in Mexico towards the end of February in the LIV Golf League opener.
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