Wednesday 9 July 2014 11:48, UK
Ian Poulter insists he won't be relying on a captain's pick to make Europe's team for the Ryder Cup as he heads into this week's Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open.
Poulter is currently just outside the automatic qualification places in Paul McGinley's side for the eagerly-anticipated event at Gleneagles in September.
Europe have won on all four occasions that Poulter has played the competition and the talisman, who is part of a strong field gathered in Aberdeen for this week’s Scottish Open, is looking to cement his place in the team in the coming weeks.
He told Sky Sports: "I've got eight tournaments in the next 10 weeks so it’s going to be busy lead-up to the Ryder Cup and I’m going to want to cement my place in Paul's team.
"I know where I am - I'm just outside the team and I want to make sure I'm in that team."
He is looking forward to the unique challenge links golf poses in Aberdeen, admitting: "A few different clubs have gone in the bag.
"I think you might see a very strong two iron hybrid go in the bag, taking the three wood out. It carries a similar distance but obviously it rolls a lot further.
"And its links golf. We don’t get to play that much links golf in any given year."
And looking ahead to next week’s Open Championship at Hoylake, Poulter has refused to rule out the threat of Tiger Woods, despite the American recently missing the cut at Congressional as he returned from back surgery.
"You can never write Tiger off and that's something that we've known throughout the years.
"Even if he's playing half his best, sometimes that's been good enough to win golf tournaments.
"So even if he's not fully fit, you've still got to be wary of Tiger."
