Robert MacIntyre is on the point of a career-defining win … even when he will not say it
Getty Photographs
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Eighty miles up the coast from North Berwick, a caddie named Ian is speaking.
And speaking.
It’s the caddie’s job to interrupt up the silence and monotony of the golf spherical, and Ian evidently takes this job very significantly. It’s Saturday afternoon on the House of Golf — the Previous Course at St. Andrews — which suggests the tempo is gradual, which suggests there’s loads of silence and monotony for Ian to fill.
However all of the sudden a subject arises amongst his group that piques his curiosity, and he falls quiet. It’s a rating replace from the Genesis Scottish Open, taking place down in North Berwick, on the Renaissance Membership. In a rustic of simply 5.5 million, Ian is one in every of perhaps 5.4 million who’re invested within the developments of this weekend on the Renaissance, the place Robert MacIntyre, golf nation’s homecoming child, is gunning for what can be one of many tales of the yr in skilled golf.
“What’s Bobby’s rating now?” Ian asks, overhearing MacIntyre’s title spoken between the golfers.
“13 beneath on the flip,” one in every of them responds. “Two again of the lead.”
Ian’s face spreads right into a toothy smile. He’s on the flip himself, standing on one of many furthest factors on the Previous Course property, miles away from the city of St. Andrews and the closest tv and the factor he cares most about.
Ultimately, he’ll see the highlights from the Saturday cost at MacIntyre’s residence open, a third-round 63 to vault straight up the leaderboard into solo-second and the Sunday ultimate pairing for the second straight yr. For now, although, all he can do is wait. In some methods, it’s even higher this manner.
“That’s good,” he says. “That’s actual good.”
IT CAN BE DIFFICULT to parse which means from week to week in professional golf.
There are the massive ones — the majors — clearly, these go with out saying. After which the Invitationals, the place the cash is nice and the status is huge. Then the Signature Occasions, these imply lots too — if solely due to the $20 million purses and restricted fields. However issues get murkier outdoors of these dozen or so weeks a yr.
What’s huge? What’s related? What’s vital? What’s not? All of it relies upon. New issues begin to matter. Issues like subject power and calendar place and sponsor exemptions and ticket gross sales and golf course structure and, sure, hometown favorites.
This week, the perfect gamers on this planet have flocked upon North Berwick as a result of the Scottish Open is held in Goldilocks territory on the professional golf schedule: near a serious championship, in a fascinating space to go to, for an honest payout and in entrance of a rabid crowd. That is professional golf at its most idyllic: attention-grabbing for the sake of being attention-grabbing. And when the world is paying consideration, the perfect tales have a tendency to search out their approach into the sunshine.
Like, for instance, younger Bobby MacIntyre, the delight of Oban, Scotland — inhabitants 8,500. As a professional on the DP World Tour, MacIntyre has been the guts and soul of his golf-obsessed homeland for years now, sporting a thick brogue and his coronary heart on his sleeve. He’s, in nearly all methods, the perfect Scottish {golfing} specimen: enjoying a method that’s low-to-the-ground, artful and weather-resistant; sporting a pores and skin tone so pale it’s often sunscreen-streaked; and bracing his audiences with humor dryer than a day breeze within the highlands.
Final summer time, MacIntyre got here inside a hair of successful his nationwide open, beating all people and all the things however a Rory McIlroy 2-iron in a five-club wind that the four-time champ would later name probably the greatest of his profession. He misplaced to McIlroy on the 18th inexperienced by one and went residence dejected.
The efficiency on the Scottish would assist propel MacIntyre into a brand new {golfing} stratosphere, incomes a spot on the Ryder Cup workforce and full-time PGA Tour membership in 2024. He moved to Orlando at first of the yr with a head filled with goals, however that promise quickly light; his type plummeted, and he gave press conferences at a number of tournaments discussing his struggles with loneliness on the highway in America.
MacIntyre went on sabbatical again to Scotland for a short time, then introduced a few of Scotland with him to the U.S., touring along with his father on the bag at first of the spring. An emotional win on the Canadian Open adopted, the largest of MacIntyre’s profession, however even then his coronary heart was targeted elsewhere.
“All people is aware of that is the one I wish to win,” MacIntyre stated in a pre-tournament presser on the Scottish on Tuesday. “If it’s not the key championships, it’s the Scottish Open.”
MacIntyre has tried to keep away from permitting himself to dream too loudly in regards to the chance that lies earlier than him on the Scottish Open. He has spoken in unusually guarded, measured phrases to the press all week — using a method not all in contrast to the one utilized by Xander Schauffele on the PGA Championship in Might.
“Tomorrow is simply one other spherical of golf,” he stated Saturday. “I’ve simply obtained to manage me and if I try this effectively, then I’m going to be in with an opportunity.”
On Saturday evening, at the least, he’ll go to mattress with that dream nonetheless very a lot a chance. MacIntyre will play in Sunday’s ultimate pairing alongside match chief Ludvig Aberg, who is 2 pictures forward and looking out each little bit of the formidable contender McIlroy was a yr in the past.
“I stated it from the beginning, I simply wish to be in with an opportunity going into Sunday and I’ve given myself that probability,” he stated. “Again residence in Scotland, it’s one I need, however I can solely management me and I’ve managed myself very effectively to date.”
A hometown child successful his homecoming occasion in probably the most golf-mad nation on this planet? That’s the type of second that doesn’t come round typically in professional golf, even right here.
It’s the kind of victory that might ship a roar by way of each Scot in North Berwick on Sunday, a hush over each fairway within the countryside.
Even on the Previous Course.
