Robert MacIntyre is on the point of a career-defining win … even when he will not say it
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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 It’s Saturday afternoon on the House of Golf — the Outdated Course at St. Andrews — which implies the tempo is sluggish, which implies there’s loads of silence and monotony for Ian to fill.
However all of a 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, occurring down in North Berwick, on the Renaissance Membership. In a rustic of simply 5.5 million, Ian is one in every of possibly 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 12 months 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 He’s on the flip himself, standing on one of many furthest factors on the Outdated Course property, miles away from the city of St. Andrews and the closest tv and the factor he cares most about.
Finally, he’ll see the highlights from the Saturday cost at MacIntyre’s dwelling open, a third-round 63 to vault straight up the leaderboard into solo-second and the Sunday remaining pairing for the second straight 12 months. 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 large ones — the majors — clearly, these go with out saying. After which the Invitationals, the place the cash is nice and the status is large. Then the Signature Occasions, these imply quite a bit too — if solely due to the $20 million purses and restricted fields. However issues get murkier exterior of these dozen or so weeks a 12 months.
What’s large? What’s related? What’s necessary? What’s not? All of it relies upon. New issues begin to matter. Issues like area energy and calendar place and sponsor exemptions and ticket gross sales and golf course structure and, sure, hometown favorites.
This week, the perfect gamers on the 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 significant 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 seek out their manner into the sunshine.
Like, for instance, younger Bobby MacIntyre, the pleasure 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, carrying a thick brogue and his coronary heart on his sleeve. He’s, in virtually all methods, the best 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 season, MacIntyre got here inside a hair of profitable his nationwide open, beating all people and the whole lot 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 dwelling dejected.
The efficiency on the Scottish would assist propel MacIntyre into a brand new {golfing} stratosphere, incomes a spot on the Ryder Cup staff and full-time PGA Tour membership in 2024. He moved to Orlando at first of the 12 months with a head stuffed with desires, however that promise quickly light; his kind 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 together with his father on the bag at first of the spring. An emotional win on the Canadian Open adopted, the most important of MacIntyre’s profession, however even then his coronary heart was targeted elsewhere.
“All people is aware of that is the one I need to win,” MacIntyre stated in a pre-tournament presser on the Scottish on Tuesday. “If it’s not the most important championships, it’s the Scottish Open.”
MacIntyre has tried to keep away from permitting himself to dream too loudly in regards to the risk that lies earlier than him on the Scottish Open. He has spoken in unusually guarded, measured phrases to the press all week — using a technique not all in contrast to the one utilized by Xander Schauffele on the PGA Championship in Could.
“Tomorrow is simply one other spherical of golf,” he stated Saturday. “I’ve simply received to manage me and if I try this properly, then I’m going to be in with an opportunity.”
On Saturday evening, a minimum of, he’ll go to mattress with that dream nonetheless very a lot a risk. MacIntyre will play in Sunday’s remaining pairing alongside event chief Ludvig Aberg, who is 2 photographs forward and searching each little bit of the formidable contender McIlroy was a 12 months in the past.
“I stated it from the beginning, I simply need to be in with an opportunity going into Sunday and I’ve given myself that probability,” he stated. “Again dwelling in Scotland, it’s one I would like, however I can solely management me and I’ve managed myself very properly to date.”
A hometown child profitable his homecoming occasion in essentially the most golf-mad nation on the planet? That’s the type of second that doesn’t come round usually in professional golf, even right here.
It’s the kind of victory that may ship a roar by each Scot in North Berwick on Sunday, a hush over each fairway within the countryside.
Even on the Outdated Course.
