The days when Ian Poulter could be described as all mouth and trousers have gone. No more can there be any references to him as being little more than a proud peacock.

High in the Sonoran desert, where saguaro bushes stand as tall as telegraph poles and cactus plants lie just off the fairways, Poulter played the golf of his life, demonstrating a wonderful short game and superb putting to capture one of the biggest prizes in golf and more than £1 million to go with it.

Poulter won his first World Golf Championship event and his first tournament in the United States by defeating Paul Casey 4 and 2 in the final of the Accenture Match Play Championship. It was the first time that Poulter, who began the tournament ranked No 11 in the world, had reached the final. For Casey, it was the second year in a row in which he had lost the final.

Poulter was playing off four handicap when he turned professional and had started work at the quaintly named Jack o’Legs club, near Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in 1994. Would anyone have believed then that the Englishman would make such a name for himself in the game that 16 years later he would rise to world No 5 and that he would be the winner on a red-letter day for English golf, the first time two men from that country contested the final of this event?

Casey had no complaints. He could not, because he was well beaten. Having injured rib muscles last July, he has still not fully recovered. In fact, he was grateful to be playing golf at this level, even if it was golf that he himself described as scrambling.

“Poulter played great today,” Casey said. “He did a fantastic job of keeping the ball in play and in keeping the pressure on me. I think he kept the ball in play on every single hole today, which takes some doing on this course believe me. And he holed a lot of clutch putts.”

Poulter, who wore a white visor, pink sweater and trousers and shoes that were both pink and white, has improved his short game in recent years until it has become something special. There was no modesty when he said how good it had been and no need for him to be modest. “It was as good as it has ever been and up there with anyone’s,” Poulter said. “That and my putting helped me keep the pressure on my opponents all week.”

Watching Casey and Poulter walking down a fairway yesterday morning talking animatedly to one another was a reminder that both live over here, they like each other’s company and were Europe team-mates in the Ryder Cup in 2004 and 2008. When Poulter played a wonderful shot on the short 3rd in the morning round, hitting his ball to within inches of the flagstick from a bunker that was so deep he could hardly see out of it, Casey threw it back to him and Poulter, grinning, said: “What — do you want me to play it again?”

The nub of the match came midway through the afternoon round. Poulter was two up playing the 13th and had hit a poor second, right of the putting surface. Casey’s drive was so powerful that he needed no more than a seven-iron and yet, from the middle of the fairway, he inexplicably pushed the shot wide of the green and took three more to get down.

There were two men paying close attention to the final who were almost as happy as Casey and Poulter — and they were both British, too. Andy McFee, the European Tour senior referee, was in charge of the morning 18 holes of this all-England clash. McFee is a tall, burly no-nonsence northerner and to have been at the centre of this epic scrap must have given him a frisson of delight.

The other person who must have been purring with pleasure at the sight of a final between two men who will surely be in his Ryder Cup team at Celtic Manor in October was Colin Montgomerie, the Europe captain.

To think that he will have two such redoubtable exponents of matchplay at his disposal come October must have cheered him no end.

New world order

There are now three Englishmen in the top six of the world rankings 1, T Woods (US); 2, S Stricker (US); 3, P Mickelson (US); 4, L Westwood (GB); 5, I Poulter (GB); 6, P Casey (GB); 7, J Furyk (US); 8, M Kaymer (Ger); 9, R McIlroy (GB); 10, P Harrington (Ire).