Ian Poulter said Michael Jordan tried to get in his head at the 2012 Ryder Cup

For anyone that was ever confused why Michael Jordan was always picked to be an advisor for the American Ryder Cup team, now we know.

Ian Poulter, who debuted his Sirius/XM radio show this week, got it rolling with a great story about Jordan and himself at the 2012 Ryder Cup.

As you remember, Poulter was absolutely lights out that week, turning into an almost superhuman golfer with his clutch shots and putts to give the European a boost that ended up helping them pull off an incredible comeback victory at Medinah.

Poulter said Jordan tried to get in his head at one point, but even the greatest basketball player in the world couldn’t crack Poulter’s focus as he found a zone that few golfers have ever uncovered.

“I remember walking off the tee box at 13, looking over and he kind of wagged his, I don’t know if you can call it a finger, it looked like an arm, this big finger comes up and he was wagging it at me, pulling a face as if to say, ‘We’ve got you,'” Poulter recalled.

“I’m a little golfer, Ian Poulter, playing golf in the Ryder Cup, and there’s legend basketball player Michael Jordan psyching me out in the Ryder Cup,” Poulter said. “And you know what? I said, ‘I’m gonna hole this putt.’ He’d done that for so many years on a basketball court. He hit the shot time and time again. I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to allow him to get in my space.’

“He was playing his basketball game and … it was my court, and he’s not playing ball.”

As you probably remember, Poulter and partner Rory McIlroy went on to win that Saturday match over Zach Johnson and Jason Dufner thanks to those five closing birdies by Poulter, something our guy at the time, Jonathan Wall, thought might propel the Europeans to a huge comeback on Sunday and a victory, which ended up happening.

This is what Wall wrote at the time.

“Ian Poulter is only one man, and Europe needs eight points on Sunday to retain the Cup, but if we learned anything from his stellar Saturday performance down the stretch, it’s that you can never count out the underdog.”

I’m getting the feeling that if these stories continue to come out of the new Poulter radio show, it could be a must-listen for golf fans.

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Shane Bacon is the editor of Devil Ball Golf and Busted Racquet on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shanebaconblogs@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter at @ShaneBacon!