Am I Good Enough to Beat a 3X PGA Tour Winner?

I went head-to-head with 3X PGA Tour winner Ian Poulter at his home course — Lake Nona Golf & Country Club — to find out if I’m actually good enough to beat a Tour pro.

This wasn’t just a friendly match. It was a legit test of where my game stands against one of the best, on a course he knows better than anyone.

Could a long drive guy hang with a PGA Tour vet on his turf? You’ll have to watch to the very end to find out… 👀

Plenty more insane matches coming soon — make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss what’s next.

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👉 https://www.instagram.com/ianjamespoulter/?hl=en

my name is Kyle Birkshshire i’m the longest hitter in the world and a threetime world long drive champion but I’m not just chasing distance anymore oh that’s it i’m on a mission to become the best golfer I can be and compete at the highest level to test for my game stands I challenge none other than Ian Palter a three-time PGA Tour winner and Ryder Cup legend to a nine-hole match at his home course Lake Nona Golf and Country Club this match challenged every part of my game well I’m getting my feet do I have what it takes to beat him stay tuned to the end to find out okay 425 par4 slight dog leg to the right you can carry the corner of the bunker at about 265 270 it’s going to be in the just in the left rough it’s okay straight roll it’s okay what do you got i got a three iron per Ian’s advice just going to move just a little right of that tan roof and I’m going to try to keep this flighted down i’ve really been working on flighting these clubs down a little bit not like chipping them but trying to increase shaftling and get that ball flying a little lower so we’ll see how we can do with that that boys and girls it’s pretty impressive it’s holding its line pretty good it’s money sweet all right let’s roll two good looking gentlemen there beautiful how good is that we’re off and rolling i’ll say it’s rained like 6 in i’ve been up in Maryland so I haven’t had to deal with it but I know you’ve been telling me it’s been pretty brutal yeah yesterday was uh yesterday and the day before have been pretty much two days of uh complete wash out i think the course like we’ve got lucky to even uh to even be um allowed on the golf course to play um fairways and and obviously uh waist areas and bunkers are going to be pretty wet still so um yeah we’ve uh we’ve got we’ve got a great day for it very lucky yeah we got we lucked out it must be a good sign good sign of things to come position A1 so I got 155 here wind’s probably off to the right i don’t think it’s hurting or helping so this is where I struggle hitting the right windows and putting the ball where I want to place it off you know when I have these shots so at 155 this is probably going to be I’m thinking 48 a 48°ree wedge just take a fraction off of it so so you’re going to have to control your spin slightly right because you don’t want it ripping back down that that bank needs to come a tiny bit more turn over a little bit on the edge of the green right just in the swale just left it out to the right a little bit okay 145 uh wind is slightly down off the right hand side i fly wedge 140 so this should be technically a perfect wedge aim just right at the pin let’s go super aggressive see if we can uh get one in there pretty tight keep coming keep coming ah it’s in the bowl it came out super spinny so I actually think my last probably And you’re using still using that plus ball i’m using the spinny ball and that’s the one that spins a little more yep okay this is a tough spot here i got a really severe slope just going to try to fly this onto that fringe and see if we can get it to grab it’s just all yips it’s You guys probably see it i I just did a little bit of that still fighting that so much 40 ft ped in the ridge spun it back down it’s only a couple of paces over the top of that ridge so uh left it a tiny bit short okay take a five there just get out of there before I make it much worse putt thank you got some deer walking around too there’ll be loads of them today there’s paid actors if you hit it about 300 y it almost gets to the end of this first little knuckle of fairway and then it kind of pops down a little ridge onto like a second fairway okay so you can see where the green is yeah it’s a slight dog leg to the right if you hit one iron and hit it good it’s getting to the end of the fairway okay so that which is fine because it still gives you a shot to get to the green easily was it is it like a double fairway it’s like a It’s like a drop down into a double fairway so you got no problem with that okay i’ll just go with the rip the one iron then that looks pretty ideal it should be perfect fairway is going to be soft it’ll be interesting to see whether I can uh hit five wood or threewood on the green from there all right so I’m just going to take a right right at Ian’s ball one iron give her a little rip money that is absolutely A1 in the May’s office as we would say okay tempting 285 uh 285 pin hazard to the right bunker to the right of the green i’m playing Carl Burkshire i can’t be laying up here can I so well you don’t miss you don’t miss screens anyway so it gives me no option other than to to go for it unless I dig it way left miss the trees the green horrible shot it’s all right it’s left to the green pin’s back right so I’ve got room but should probably get up and down for birdie you got 269 pin 269 slightly down off the right yeah so at 269 I’m going to hit a sixiron i don’t think I’m going to get there but what I do want to do is be able to put it on the front edge so a really strong sixiron with this wind will either be just short of the green or on the front edge come on wind come on it should just be okay you wouldn’t want to be three yards right of that right okay we got lucky we found it we uh we got it running down the cart path 47 y it’s not going to stop out this rough so go did he carry that is so good did he carry okay she’s on all right i don’t think people understand how good that was it came out like dead head i was worried it was just going to plug right in the end of the uh in the lip of the bunker okay so I got a a little bit of a weird slope here the ball is sitting pretty clean but it’s a very hanging slope so I’m going to play this with a little bit of caution play this a little bit short leave myself a 10 or 12 footer under the hole because it could come out kind of hot so that’s kind of what I’m playing for and um see if we can execute and that’s what I didn’t want to do because I tried to get too aggressive and lean forward and grab it and I paid the price big mistake there again just really wasn’t comfortable with that shot and it showed another tough shot coming back here so just got to try to flop it up and just get out here with a six keep chasing almost played it too good i’ll take it still might be able to get out of here with six got lucky found it knocked it on to 25 30 feet downhill fraction left to right left it way short that was not the best of putts either though was it okay you’ve got this what do you got 7 ft just about yeah look like she’s going to slide a little bit this way so it’s good pace and like a good stroke well done that’s a good up and down thanks good up and down i’ll take that six and you know this is something I’ve really had to learn about myself as a golfer is that when you do stuff like that you have to stay in the hole because it’s going to happen and that’s probably one of the hardest things for me to do is stay in the hole like that good putt two shots down through two so see if we can claw it back 451 yards uh you know it’s it’s this isn’t really about the length it’s just quite tight you really don’t need to send it on this hole it’s stroke index one more so because of the green and the fact that down the right hand side you don’t really want to run out down the right hand side there is a hazard way down the right hand side you will be able to reach it it’s stroking next one for a reason it’s a difficult hole so just put it in play give yourself a chance so I mean if I hit driver winds off the left it’s going to leave me like seven iron bit of a steery one just to put it in play but you know it’s fair it’s fairway it’s perfect all right so I’m going with one iron just a little bit probably just a little right of Yen’s line but that line’s fine too just get her down that fairway should be It’s fine right should be tell you what that’s awesome okay 160 the wind has just switched a tiny bit it’s now more in off the left 160 i think I’m just going to trap a seven iron keep the flight down keep it just under the hole truth be known it was very thiny but we don’t need to tell anyone that right just everyone that’s watching all right so I got 146 wind in off the left so I’m going to knock down a nine iron here and just try to really hit a good number and so that’s kind of the big thing for me is these is this is a really really good practice for me learning how to flight these shots down so we’ll see what we can do here played in nice hang on grab a piece all right that’s all right i mean flighted down nice yeah I’ll take it i thought it would hold off more all right so hit a pretty pretty solid shot in there it’s honestly when I So these flighted shots are very hard for me so hitting a shot that good for me was a big victory so we got a pretty big swinger about 30 feet here right to left a fraction downhill but I got to factor in that these greens are a little slow so it’s really all about speed control here oh wow you weren’t lying when he says downhill okay 20 ft part’s going to play relatively flat uphill downhill not high enough going to miss low okay steady stop paw paw paw seems like fours aren’t bad on this hole no you’ll take it all right well I am now completely confused by these greens cuz I I remember hole one being slow so the crazy thing about that that was the exact put I wanted to hit i felt that was exactly what I wanted so roll out wow slow going back up that hill so flabbergasted i just don’t know how it’s I am completely completely perplexed par 4 Lake Nona 183 yds we got helping wind this storm has just uh switched the wind on us a tiny bit so she’s playing down relatively front pin so it’s all carry now i hit 7 iron 180 and we got 183 downwind this should if I strike it well it should be perfect i’ve pulled it a bit should be distance okay that’s a great shot okay man like it’s getting too heavy it’s like my glove is all slippery all right so round hole four ian’s got a pretty good shot there about 20 feet away 180 started raining so we took about a 10-minute break i’m still going with pitching wedge here i suspect it might be a little short but we’ll see i just It’ll be good if I make it it’s a tailwind so I don’t want this ball to get away from me too much in terms of length so see if we can get a good shot all right looks like it’s coming back a little bit too that was a tough shot to have to wait over for 10 15 minutes what do you think of this picture yeah that’s pretty huge that was coming down from about 150 ft i tell you what what’s mad so this is how much rain we’ve had the last couple of days that obviously stake is not normally in the hazard that’s about three feet outside of the hazard line oh my god so you can see how much that that’s all normally bunker you can see where the bunker line sits and it’s 3 ft past that red stake uh see you make a deuce come on come on then oh short criminal never leave it short devastating so I think I need to give this one a little bit of respect looks like it runs away i want to say it’s trying to move right to left yeah it’s gonna be a little quick and after that last hole it’s definitely that’s definitely still pretty fresh in my mind do it oh my gosh it didn’t move i thought that was going to move right to left yeah that was the exact put I wanted to hit so yeah good putt it’s all you can do okay fifth hole here at Lake Nona it’s one of the signature holes when you turn around and have a look at the hole it’s a great short path four you can see uh big hazard the green’s perched up to the right hand side you’ve got a split middle fairway and today it’s about 311 to the pin i was hoping for myself it was downwind so I could actually get there but I can’t i can’t all the will in the world i can’t um so I’m going to have to just play it up the left hand side just try and put it in play down the left that’ll never get you in trouble no okay it’s going to be on the lower level of the uh of the fairway it’s in a good spot what are you going to do here this is uh Well here’s the problem driver’s going to be too far with this headwind it’s going to be a tall order of the one iron so I do think I can still get it there even with this wind if I smoke it but I’m going to have to hit a very specific shot that just shreds right through the wind i’m going to take it at that red stake and if I get that thing to fall a little bit to the right leave myself a bump and run up to the green then that would be that would be good this wind definitely threw us both for a loop there it is there it is tell you what that just that little bit of wind there the heaviness in the air with the rain has just honestly that’s stalled that one i mean it’s a nice shot it’s perfect it’s on the fairway but I think that’s that’s got eaten up uh 87 yards straight into the wind so um 87 is probably playing uh 95 as soft as the greens are and as mount the amount of rain we’ve had the last few days you don’t really want to be hitting a lob wedge because that’s that’s going to rip spin so I’m going to play a 95 yard shot with a 115 yard club so I’m actually going to take 20 yards of distance off of this so just a feely little 56 degree that’s it should be pretty good all right so I got 55 yards left bit of an uphill shot here to be totally honest if I was in a tournament with these conditions putting it back there every time but uh it’s not a still not a bad spot i’m going to take a 56 open the blade up tow down just give myself a little more leeway with the uh with clipping it and just try to fly as about 50 aim aim a little bit left of the pin too and just play it out to there it’s all about distance control here it’s in the trap that was about as good as I could do there i was literally under the sand there i think we have a little right to left play ball out right edge it’s a little firm see if we can give her a good roll unlucky that’s a really tough five unlucky okay chances uh should have a really good chance of making birdie here little right to left too soft that snapped left hand too soft yeah I normally hit my putts a little firmer than that it was a bit kind of was a bit It was a little weak 210 yards we got a little bit of wind off the right hand side it’s a nice par three little swale to the right of the green drop off to the left bunker short short front and like you played here before huh it’s like you played here before i’ve only played a few times go great line thank you it’s on i think it’s just a bit short i was tough for me to I think get the full yardage out of that five all right so I’m going to go seven iron bring it in a little bit from the right see what we can do with this keep turning keep turning okay so pin high i was the right club torn here between putting it or chipping it but I do think this is probably going to be bit of a bump and run with the 52 get it on the ground and running so it’s the plan it’s exactly what I wanted to do for a second I thought that had a chance but I am not going to complain about that okay I need to try and get off this par train it’s uh 35 ft slightly uphill grains off the right should move a fraction right to left there it is or a little left to right at the end i thought I was going to miss left and she went in thanks dude well I’m getting my beat but I’m having a good time okay 442 yd par4 the uh the hazard down the right hand side kind of 30 to cover can you see yeah it’s a real short cover but can you see the hazard down the right just cuts back in a bit where the where the little bushes are that’s hazard there so okay you want to hit it 270 okay 280 max and that’s only What if you can cover the hazard what’s that what if you can cover the hazard look you I mean to be honest like laser that it’ be really I tell you what would be interesting a 330 cover to laser that right hand bunker the big white bunker it’s probably like 340 3 345 345 you’ve got that in the tank listen if you’re over that I mean you’re just going to have a flick on the green so you might as well You might as well uh Why not you might as well set You’re going to You’re going to send it down nine i’m going to send it right so you might as well send Going to send it just send it down soft bounce oh my gosh that’s It’s nearly out of bounds but it’s uh it’s okay okay so we got a short par well 440 yard par4 did you was about to say that’s short let me tell you boys and girls 442 yards is not a short pour unless your name is Carl Berkshire okay yeah maybe I should just not get so cocky about anyway at this point with how this round’s been going all right but um yeah so we were talking about it and it’s about it’s about 3:30 to cover the water on the right and 345 into that trap now the ball is going short today admittedly my stock carries about 350 360 i think right now my stock car is going to be about 340 so if I hit it solid the water shouldn’t be an issue so that’s kind of my plan is to just take it right at that flag and just try to hit a solid T-shot here see what we can do with it he’s cutting a tiny bit has he got the carrier of the trap i didn’t see water so I think it’s all right probably my eyes aren’t good enough to see that far so like we’ll we’ll have to go up there and find out appreciate you helping us you know do a tour with these houses here you know it’s always nice it’s It’s for the real estate department right if you want a house at Lake Nona look what you could buy okay 171 7 IR goes 180 so I’m actually going to open up a 7 iron i’m going to hit a real soft one try and take a good five yards off it winds off the right oh oh might have stayed oh no no if only he wasn’t five shots ahead i might not be five shots ahead after this the only thing I was worried about was obviously just clipping that yeah with a seven iron and that’s exactly what he did so um we’re in trouble boys and girls it’s not quite out of bounds but it’s not good and for the next house as we were talking about for the real estate department here’s another one uh just to the left of the seventh hole beautiful house five bedrooms 8,000 square ft comes at a nice price of about uh $4.6 million if you like describing his guest house don’t um don’t worry about me hearing the push i need to get myself back in play oh chunked it now I’ve got more tree trouble holy moly i think we’re still going to be okay though yeah you’re probably chipping it in for a four okay here’s the deal so I have 97 yards sand is really packed from the rain but if I catch this clean which is my goal this thing is going to rip back so I’m taking a little bit less club i’m going to take it back short a little bit shorter and just rip through it try to catch clean impact and just try to get this thing to not spin back too much on me a little heavy it’s all right chipped out we find ourselves with 86 yards to go more tree trouble so seven iron we’re going to try and land it about 15 yards short the green and see if it will skip up there it’s a beauty okay we might even be able to get out here with a five which would be unbelievable all right so 25 yards left here going to go high on this one because of that slope about a 24 25 yard fly let’s let that ball release see if we can get a nice up and down here i will take that see if we can hold this and only give one back okay two to go three back now so we’ll see if I can get it any closer than that but as I said it’s it’s been a tough day just kind of you know getting settled in but I’ll tell you what this has been and I’m very proud of myself the version of me a month ago would have absolutely had a meltdown mentally i would have thrown a temper tantrum at some point and it is very tough for me to not do that but I feel like a lot of the stuff I’ve done with Dr rotella and like reflecting and it forces you to become more calm and have better perspective on things and that’s one of the biggest things I’ve been trying to do more is reflect on where I am in life and like if my biggest problems are a bad round of golf or things not going good for me i’m pretty damn lucky and I need to remind myself of that more because blowing up like a spoiled brat in the golf course is not something that I want to do i don’t want to be doing that stuff and I’ve done it way too much in the past so I’m very happy that I haven’t done that yet today so that’s the one positive I’m taking from today plus I get to hang out with Ian there you go there you go it’s even better one life ain’t bad is it no life isn’t all bad you don’t have to play great every day right we would love always play our best golf all the time doesn’t happen right so you know we got two holes to go you’re three behind i’ll tackle you on the next hole maybe I’ll put fits it’s not the end of the world like let’s let’s let’s have a bit of fun and see what happens but look you’re you’re right it’s not worth blowing up over and it’s just a game of golf at the end of the day you’re three behind whole eight nice par four relatively wide fairway reasonably flat green one iron should be fine here one iron’s more than enough okay perfect to be honest I wouldn’t know what more than a one iron looks like anyway really apart from the one of 340 you just hit up the last which is not in my wheelhouse so I’ll just have to make do with my little 290 i’ve necked it a bit it’s as good as it gets there it’s okay oh yeah he’s fairway fine probably at the just left of that tallest tree the one I just let it rip turning a little bit might catch okay there sort of a waste bunker out down that left hand side it’s okay okay little bit of tree trouble depends how far it’s gone into that trap but yeah we’ll see i reckon you’ll have a shot so what would you say is like the most um pressure packed shot you’ve ever had in your career uh any of the ones in the Ryder Cup i was going to say it i mean it doesn’t get more nervous than that first T nerves are real in the rider cup yeah you were one of the guys that like had them through the crowd how was that we did it in 2012 it was insane i mean it’s got to be so crazy as a professional hitting a shot with people going nuts off the tea we did it well Bubba did it in 2012 Friday and then I was paired against him Saturday morning so I was like “Okay let’s get right back to you okay let’s let’s have it right back at you.” So we did it but like I’m telling you now like I wear a Whoop strap so I can keep keep track of my my heart rate and everything I do i know my heart rate would have been [Music] like60 170 standing on that tea i mean that’s got to be so much fun playing well fun but you just couldn’t you there’s no way you can keep that up for you know for for the whole day you’d be physically exhausted well the rider cup’s a great opportunity because it’s competition but it’s not like it’s not a personal legacy thing where like you’re you’re trying to keep your car or something so you can get you can have like a little fun with it and really take I actually think it’s more pressure than any of that oh really you’ve got a continent a nation a country that are asking you to represent and deliver for them so I actually think you got more pressure than playing for your card playing for your status i think it’s it’s way more pressure and do you think that helped you like having the um the crowd click cheering when you’re hitting and all that pressure all that heart rate or I wouldn’t I wouldn’t say it helped me to hit that T-OT i’d have said it was great fun at the time would I want to do it again not really um was it part of the whole ordeal and the whole makeup of what was the Ryder Cup that year yes yeah if you’re going to be the Rder Cup it’s like you got to do it you know almost yeah i mean it’s like look I guess it’s like you know the waste management part three right some guys want the noise some guys want to hype them up some guys don’t want any noise well here’s my So here’s my thinking if you’re at that waste management hole I would rather there be noise so that there’s no chance it’s quiet and some drunk idiot screams in the back of your back swing i would be just like why don’t you just have the noise so you know it’s going to be there for that one hole okay we got 137 tiny puff of breeze off the right hand side uh greens are so soft and they’re rip spinning if I hit the wedge it’s just going to rip spin so I’m going to chip a nine iron that’s pretty darn good right there thinking I got that a bit deep i actually got a bit too much of that that was such a good ball flight though it was It was a nice strike good flight just just compressed it a little bit too much yeah i hate it when I compress it too much i hate when I hit it that good like and so for me someone like me who’s got a lot of like I have a lot of spin that ball flight to me is like that’s all I care about like that’s my main focus is being able to do what he just did cuz that is like if you have that ball flight and that kind of control and you have a good short game it’s really going to be hard to play bad golf literally any day of the week okay Carl’s got 126 yards his problem is the bank that it sits on and that lower limb okay so the angle that he’s got from here to come up I actually think it’s going to take it up it’s going to hit that branch so the only other shot he’s got is to hood something turn the face down and see if he can hook it like 80 yards but it’s difficult because he’s only got 126 yards to go i’m going to be aiming it right over this trap and try to hook it onto that green so see what we can do here did I almost kill you no no it was right wow that was unlucky i tell you what that got around it that was absolutely a foot right that thing was money okay 120 sweet gonna go with a 52 degree wedge here at 120 basically try to do what Ian did a few minutes ago keep coming it’s coming turn over all right well we’ll see if I can show us some magic minimize the damage see what we can do here good shot from there that was a tough lie i mean it’s it was like sitting on top of it a little bit yeah it was like half plugged but weird still had a lie okay we’ve hit a decent nine iron little flighted 9 iron from 136 in it’s left me about 15 ft maybe a touch left to right it’s a good putt i think this one’s going to try to break a little left to right bit uphill see if we can get out here with the five nope slow push good move just a touch right i’ll be fascinated to see how far you get it down there there are some awkward pot bunk like not really pot bunkers but sort of bunkers down this left side so 5 530 over that tree line four yard yeah can you see the the two trees that are together yeah it’s like that’s actually a decent line because you can’t run out on that line if you go right of that yes you’ll run out left of that there are like four small little awkward little bunkers but it’s a par five what’s Carl Bergshire gonna do just just hitting three iron down there i got come back from a five shot deficit in one hole so let’s do this you can make two i can still make seven there’s a slim chance but anyway it’s good to swing there okay it’s on a good line i should just about be able to reach that green in two from there oh beauty it’s on the fairway it It’s an a fairway it’s on the fairway it’s okay it’s just on the 10th that’s all right you can have a line to the pin from there okay ninth hole middle of the fairway 264 pin into the breeze 3-wood see if we can land this in the middle of the green go home ah it’s a bit spinny i think it’s going to be just short no she got there you been to the gym huh she got there 223 pin all right head into the into the fan yeah yep all right so I’m going to go with the sixiron here given my seven iron earlier went 210 with that wind so I think this is the right club and aim just right at this pin make a nice swing and see if we can put it close that wind is not going to help it no it’s left of the green yep you’ll be all right this is called leaving yourself shortsided you go low with this try to get it to run up that half pipe as much as I can hood this face a little bit as well take some spin off nearly made it very happy with that like that’s my shot i do not have a high shot like that so It’s on a great line i’ve just left it way short all right so looks like we got a little bit of a left to right putt i don’t think it’s super quick this will be a good one to make just get some good stuff going stay up see if we can knock this in never it out well that was a lot of fun enjoyed it buddy that was awesome yeah definitely not my best day and uh honestly I think you know we both could have he obviously knows that he could have played even better too but we had a lot of fun great time out here like Nona i’m super glad we got together and uh I’m not going to say too much cuz I know there isn’t much we can divulge right now but there is some pretty insane stuff coming up with us collabing together so stay tuned for it stay tuned for stay tuned there’s more coming um thanks for watching and uh we’ll we’ll do a rematch again soon right yeah absolutely that was a lot of fun hope you guys enjoyed it like comment subscribe if you did see you guys later