{"id":41,"date":"2005-11-15T22:15:17","date_gmt":"2005-11-15T14:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.parforchina.com\/blog\/?p=41"},"modified":"2016-05-16T11:58:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T15:58:17","slug":"hsbc-champions-ian-poulters-funny-looking-pants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/hsbc-champions-ian-poulters-funny-looking-pants\/","title":{"rendered":"HSBC Champions: Ian Poulter’s ‘funny looking pants’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story originally appeared in the November 13, 2005 edition of the South China Morning Post<\/a> (subscription only).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ianpoulterpantsshanghai.jpg\"by DAN WASHBURN<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the hordes were hovering behind Tiger Woods as he practiced at the driving range Saturday morning, Ian Poulter<\/a> worked on his putting a couple dozen meters away. There was no crowd surrounding the Englishman, but nearly everyone who walked past him did a double take, stopped and took a photo. Why? Poulter\u2019s pants, of course.<\/p>\n

Much has been written about the maverick 29-year-old, his outlandish attire, spiky highlighted hair and reflective sunglasses. And, pants-wise, Poulter brought his A-game to Shanghai — four pairs spun from ornately embroidered Chinese silk.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot have said \u2018nice pants\u2019 — the ones who could speak English, anyway,\u201d Poulter said of the fans at the HSBC Champions tournament. \u201cI find it good fun and I don\u2019t want to be boring. There are loads of guys out here who just wear standard stuff, and that\u2019s not what I\u2019m about. I want to be different. And the silk pants were a nice way to do it out here in China.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPoulter\u2019s special China line of pants, like all of his more garish offerings, was designed by William Hunt, the famed tailor from London\u2019s Saville Row who is also a favorite of David Beckham. Saturday\u2019s edition was particularly bold: shiny and gold, with tiny stitched flowers of orange, green, red, blue and, yes, pink \u2013 the color he chose for his matching shirt, visor and snakeskin belt.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s pretty cool, yeah?\u201d said Shanghai resident Song Barnes. She had just had her photo taken with Poulter in the clubhouse after his round on Saturday, a disappointing 1-over 73 that left him tied for 12th at 7-under, nine strokes behind leader David Howell.<\/p>\n

But Barnes didn\u2019t appear to care. She said she was going to get the photo printed that night so she could have Poulter sign it on Sunday. She wanted to hang it on her wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like a rock star, but he\u2019s a golfer,\u201d she explained. \u201cHis pants are like a piece of art. Most players are very boring, no style. But everybody thinks he\u2019s really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poulter said he started getting more creative with his tournament clothing a few years ago, but he upped the ante with his anti-establishment gear in 2004, when he caused a stir with Union Jack pants<\/a> during the British Open and American stars-and-bars trousers<\/a> for the PGA Championship.<\/p>\n

This year, the BBC let readers submit designs<\/a> for Poulter\u2019s British Open pants. He wore the winning effort<\/a>, which featured a big image of the Claret Jug on his left leg and a list of past Open winners on the back of the right leg.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing surprises me with his pants anymore,\u201d said Henrik Stenson, the Swede who played with Poulter during the first two rounds in Shanghai. \u201cI\u2019ve seen quite a few different hair styles and quite a few patterns on the pants. I thought [his Chinese pants] were right up there, though. They are close to leading the funny looking pants tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stenson offered some advice for players grouped with Poulter in the future: \u201cYou don\u2019t want to watch them when he is walking, because you can get dizzy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poulter never wears his designer pants more than once. It\u2019s one and done and then they usually go to one charity auction or another, where they often fetch between 1,000 and 5,000 pounds. Poulter\u2019s Shanghai collection might be a little more difficult to say goodbye to than most, though — he\u2019s liking the way the Chinese silk feels against his skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good stuff,\u201d he said with a smile and a nod. \u201cReally good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

More photos here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story originally appeared in the November 13, 2005 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only). by DAN WASHBURN While the hordes were hovering behind Tiger Woods as he practiced at the driving range Saturday morning, Ian Poulter worked on his putting a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,5,7,13,16,8,9,10],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-china","tag-danwashburn","tag-golf","tag-hsbcchampions","tag-ianpoulter","tag-scmp","tag-stories","tag-tournaments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/2151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}