One of golf’s bitter rivalries took another turn, as a response to a graphic on social media led Ian Poulter to accuse Billy Horschel of requesting $45 million (A$66m) to join LIV Golf.
The exchange began when Poulter responded to a post about golf ball data on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.
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Poulter seemed perplexed at some of the statistics on offer and revealed his swing speed of 115 mph (185 km/h) wasn’t enough to carry the ball to the distances shown in the graph.
However, Horschel also took to social media in an attempt to disprove Poulter’s swing speed claim and pointed to data from the official PGA Tour website.
On the PGA Tour site, Poulter’s average swing speed was listed as 110.04 mph in the 2020/21 season and 110.53 mph in the 2021/22 season.
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Horschel also added the caption: “So you are one of those guys that over exaggerate their club head speed.”
But Poulter wouldn’t let his long-time antagonist get the last laugh and took aim at the fact Horschel supposedly asked for a lofty sum of money to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
Poulter was part of the initial wave of stars from the PGA Tour to defect to LIV as he inked an estimated $20 million deal to join the rival circuit.