Fox Sports analyst Brad Faxon calls Ian Poulter a ‘twat’ over Chambers Bay criticism

**** Update: Brad Faxon, via a Fox Sports spokesperson, explained on Tuesday that his unflattering description of Ian Poulter as a “twat” was meant not as a derogatory term for a particular part of a woman’s anatomy. Faxon’s intent was to pay homage to his friend from Britain, where the word has come to mean “a person regarded as stupid or obnoxious.“

Faxon’s use of the word was “a misunderstanding in that ... in the English and British context of it, it’s pronounced differently and it means like an obnoxious or ignorant person,” the Fox spokesperson said. “I guess it’s a word that Poulter uses on his Twitter feed from time to time, so it’s kind of an homage to that.

“Those two know each other, he said, and Brad had made the point that, ‘I totally didn’t mean it in the way people thought, I didn’t say it in the way people thought.’”

A thorough but certainly not exhaustive search for Poulter tweeting the word came up empty, though his fans toss it at him a fair bit. Poulter’s Ryder Cup teammate from another part of the U.K. tweeted it at least once as an insult, took heat for it from English footballer Robbie Savage, and offered a tepid apology for using the four-letter word.

Faxon wanted to emphasize that his use of the word “was not the way people interpreted it at all,” the spokesperson said. “It’s more just an homage to something Poulter says.”

Brad Faxon, a PGA Tour golfer and an analyst for Fox Sports’ inaugural U.S. Open coverage last week, is apparently not Ian Poulter’s biggest fan.

Faxon on Monday took issue with criticism Poulter leveled at the USGA for the condition of the greens at the tournament by using an offensive term for a woman’s genitalia to insult the European Ryder Cup star.

“I think you just kind of need to shut up,” said Rhode Island native Faxon, discussing Poulter’s long Instagram rant dissing the putting surfaces at U.S. Open host Chambers Bay, on Boston’s WEEI sports talk radio Monday morning. “Poulter’s kind of a twat.”

Faxon conceded that the greens -- ripped by a slew of contestants at the men’s second major of the season -- were not exactly primo but said the “average guy” sitting at home watching the tourney did not want to hear golfers complain about course conditions.

“The views are spectacular,” Faxon said. “We’re put here in Puget Sound. You’re seeing this unbelievable [links-] style golf course. Everyone would like to come out here and play a round of golf. And you’re whining about these greens being bad when everybody has to play those same greens on those same holes. I get it. The greens weren’t perfect. Everyone was saying things about that, even the USGA ...”

Faxon noted that the newly crowned U.S. Open champ did not complain about the greens, while Billy Horschel “had some funny things he did on the golf course.”

Horschel has since apologized for those “funny things.” Perhaps Faxon would like to say he’s sorry for using a poor choice of words to rip Poulter.