SecondMcIntyre was a day late to the Open. He was due to attend a press conference here earlier on Monday but had to change plans at the last minute following his Scottish Open victory at the Renaissance Club in North Berwick.
“I don’t think I can get to Troon,” he said that night. “I don’t think I can legally drive.”
He wasn’t much of a drinker but decided to make an exception on Sunday. He was last seen in the club bar in the early hours with one arm around his father Dougie and the other on a silver punch bowl filled with fine Scotch whisky.
When McIntyre finally got here, he looked in great spirits. If a night of whiplash seems like an odd way to prepare for a major, then, as he himself said, life is too short to let moments like this pass unmarked. “When you achieve a childhood dream and you have family and friends who have supported you since you were a kid, I think there’s something about being absolutely crazy.”
McIntyre has worked too hard, worried too much, and waited too long for this win to mean so much to him and his family. “I would do it all over again. It was just one of those great nights.
It was his second win in the last six starts, following his win at the Canadian Open early last month. Tommy Fleetwood (No. 12) is four places ahead of him in the world rankings, but given his form, McIntyre is Britain’s main contender this week. It’s been 25 years since a Scot (Paul Lowry) won the British Open, and it’s been 25 years since a Scot (Colin Montgomery) won the Scottish Open until he did that.
McIntyre grew up about 70 miles off the coast from Oban, where his father was the greenkeeper at Glencruitten. He recently moved back to the UK after six months in the US, but ultimately decided it wasn’t for him.
McIntyre, who turned 28 in August, learned a lot about himself while abroad. He can tell you until the moment things finally work out in his favor. That was in May, when he was competing in the Myrtle Beach Classic. He had just birdied the first hole on Sunday to extend his lead to two shots while chasing his first PGA Tour victory.
“Everything is great,” he told himself as he hit his tee shot straight into the middle of the second fairway, but suddenly, it wasn’t. He blew left on his second shot, teed it out of the rough and took three putts to get in.
“Then I started thinking ‘the game is over’ and the moment you think that, your emotions start to spiral out of control. You lose all control of yourself, your thought process, your touch, everything, just goes away. . He finished tied for 13th place.
The southpaw thought about it over the next few days and finally determined what the problem was. “What happened in Myrtle Beach taught me not to try to win golf tournaments.”
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That sounds like a weird way to go about it when you’re trying to make a living doing it. But those who know McIntyre say he is the kind of guy who always thinks too much. His only goal at next week’s PGA Championship is to avoid getting ahead of himself – “keep fighting and stay calm.” Still, he was playing pretty poorly until an eagle on the 72nd hole bumped him up to eighth place.
“That was a real light switch that made me think, ‘You know what, the golf game isn’t the problem, I’m the problem.'” Call it the Bob Way. “There’s no magic secret,” he said. “I just don’t get my way.”
Since he stopped worrying, he started winning. He has dreamed of winning the Scottish Open for as long as he can remember, but that dream was taken away from him when Rory McIlroy beat him with back-to-back birdies on the last two holes in 2023. He found himself feeling “relaxed like when I was at a golf tournament, no nerves, nothing, I was just trying to enjoy myself.”
Nothing has changed this week. “It’s the same again, I’m relaxed. When I’m not on the court I enjoy spending time at home with friends and family and when I’m on the court I enjoy spending time with my team.
“On the first tee, we’ll start with par. I’ve got as many opportunities as anyone else in the field. Same as last week. The key is to be in that position and see where the cards fall. Hopefully on Sunday When it came and I had the opportunity, that’s what I wanted.
