Defeated Garcia hits out at Poulter over drop

“He’s the one who has to live with it,” said the Spaniard over what happened on the seventh en route to his 7&6 defeat.

Four up at the time, Poulter pushed his approach into the desert scrub and finished in a bush.

He sought a free drop because of a television tower between his ball and flag, but after a long debate with two rules officials involved he chose to play it from where it was and then aimed away from the tower.

Garcia won the hole, but after losing also stated: “He did what he felt was right. I told him what I thought.”

Last night’s win means Poulter, left, who is now close to becoming a near-certainty for the Ryder Cup in October, has guaranteed himself at least 540,726 today.

But fellow Englishman Paul Casey found himself involved in his first tough match of the week in the other semi-final, being one down to Colombian Camilo Villegas with four holes to play.

All four players, fighting for a first prize of almost 900,000, had to cope with monsoon-like conditions for the best part of an hour early in their matches. Garcia and Casey both opened with double-bogey sixes in the rain, wind and cold, while at the 208-yard third Garcia had a semi-shank into the lake and Casey made an even bigger hash of the hole.

The sixth seed’s tee shot was so badly mis-hit that it travelled little more than 100 yards. He was even short of the water, but then pitched into it and, like Garcia, lost the hole to a bogey four.

Play had been held up for nearly 15 minutes just before, but on the resumption Poulter took the next three holes as well and, after losing the seventh, birdied the next three and won after Garcia missed the green badly on the short 12th.