Robert MacIntyre is on the brink 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 is 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 at the Home of Golf — the Old Course at St. Andrews — which implies the tempo is sluggish, which implies there’s a lot of silence and monotony for Ian to fill.
But abruptly 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, at the Renaissance Club. In a nation of simply 5.5 million, Ian is one of perhaps 5.4 million who’re invested in the developments of this weekend at the Renaissance, the place Robert MacIntyre, golf nation’s homecoming child, is gunning for what can be one of the tales of the yr in skilled golf.
“What’s Bobby’s score now?” Ian asks, overhearing MacIntyre’s identify spoken between the golfers.
“Thirteen under at the turn,” one of them responds. “Two back of the lead.”
Ian’s face spreads into a toothy smile. He’s at the flip himself, standing on one of the furthest factors on the Old Course property, miles away from the city of St. Andrews and the nearest tv and the factor he cares most about.
Eventually, 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 closing 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 real good.”
IT CAN BE DIFFICULT to parse that means from week to week in professional golf.
There are the large ones — the majors — clearly, these go with out saying. And then the Invitationals, the place the cash is sweet and the status is large. Then the Signature Events, these imply a lot too — if solely as a result of of the $20 million purses and restricted fields. But issues get murkier exterior of these dozen or so weeks a yr.
What’s large? What’s related? What’s necessary? What’s not? It all relies upon. New issues begin to matter. Things like discipline power and calendar place and sponsor exemptions and ticket gross sales and golf course structure and, sure, hometown favorites.
This week, the finest gamers in the world have flocked upon North Berwick as a result of the Scottish Open is held in Goldilocks territory on the professional golf schedule: near a main championship, in a fascinating space to go to, for a respectable payout and in entrance of a rabid crowd. This is professional golf at its most idyllic: fascinating for the sake of being fascinating. And when the world is paying consideration, the finest tales have a tendency to seek out their manner into the mild.
Like, for instance, younger Bobby MacIntyre, the pride of Oban, Scotland — inhabitants 8,500. As a professional on the DP World Tour, MacIntyre has been the coronary heart and soul of his golf-obsessed homeland for years now, carrying a thick brogue and his coronary heart on his sleeve. He is, in nearly all methods, the preferrred Scottish {golfing} specimen: taking part in a type that’s low-to-the-ground, artful and weather-resistant; sporting a pores and skin tone so pale it’s normally sunscreen-streaked; and bracing his audiences with humor dryer than a day breeze in the highlands.
Last summer time, MacIntyre got here inside a hair of profitable his nationwide open, beating everyone and all the things however a Rory McIlroy 2-iron in a five-club wind that the four-time champ would later name one of the finest of his profession. He misplaced to McIlroy on the 18th inexperienced by one and went residence dejected.
The efficiency at the Scottish would assist propel MacIntyre into a new {golfing} stratosphere, incomes a spot on the Ryder Cup crew and full-time PGA Tour membership in 2024. He moved to Orlando at the begin of the yr with a head full of goals, however that promise quickly pale; 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 brief whereas, then introduced some of Scotland with him to the U.S., touring along with his father on the bag at the begin of the spring. An emotional win at the Canadian Open adopted, the largest of MacIntyre’s profession, however even then his coronary heart was centered elsewhere.
“Everybody knows this is the one I want to win,” MacIntyre mentioned in a pre-tournament presser at the Scottish on Tuesday. “If it’s not the major championships, it’s the Scottish Open.”
MacIntyre has tried to keep away from permitting himself to dream too loudly about the risk that lies earlier than him at the Scottish Open. He has spoken in unusually guarded, measured phrases to the press all week — using a technique not all not like the one utilized by Xander Schauffele at the PGA Championship in May.
“Tomorrow is just another round of golf,” he mentioned Saturday. “I’ve just got to control me and if I do that well, then I’m going to be in with a chance.”
On Saturday night time, a minimum of, he’ll go to mattress with that dream nonetheless very a lot a risk. MacIntyre will play in Sunday’s closing pairing alongside event chief Ludvig Aberg, who is 2 pictures forward and searching each bit of the formidable contender McIlroy was a yr in the past.
“I said it from the start, I just want to be in with a chance going into Sunday and I’ve given myself that chance,” he mentioned. “Back home in Scotland, it’s one I want, but I can only control me and I’ve controlled myself very well so far.”
A hometown child profitable his homecoming occasion in the most golf-mad nation in the world? That’s the kind 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 each Scot in North Berwick on Sunday, a hush over each fairway in the countryside.
Even at the Old Course.
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