Bob MacIntyre 'has the balls' to win The Open as Kiwi pal insists Scottish star is in the world class category
Ryan Fox is adamant pal Bob MacIntyre has the balls to win The Open.
The Scottish star heads to Royal Portrush aiming to burst into the elite Major club. MacIntyre almost made the jump last month when runner-up at the US Open and has now set his sights on going one better at the 153rd Championship.
Fox, who played alongside the Oban hero at Oakmont and also when he made the PGA Tour win breakthrough in Canada, was again at his side during the final round of the Genesis Scottish Open.
The Kiwi reckons MacIntyre's exploits helped him in following suit of grabbing two PGA Tour wins this term and believes the Tartan star has shown he's got both the game and the bottle to get his talented hands around the Claret Jug.
Fox said: 'There's no flaws in this game. I saw that on the Saturday US Open. He played fantastic. Obviously he played great on the Sunday and JJ [Spaun] did something incredible to beat him.
'If you're Bob sitting in the clubhouse with two to play and you're tied for the lead, you'd probably think in worst case: I'm in a play-off here. Fair play to him, he was a great sport about it seeing JJ finish birdie, birdie and what else can you do?
'He did everything, he can control well and the other thing that Bob is very, very good at is, when he gets in the mix, he hits all the shots that you need to hit. He's proven that over here, in the US, in the Ryder Cup and you can't really teach that trait.
'You've got that deep down inside you that, when the pressure comes on, you actually stand up and 'balls-up' for want of a better term. And Bob is really really good at that.
"He does everything really well without anything sort of jumping out at you going: He's phenomenal at this. But when you actually break it down he drives it really good, he gets really good on shots, his short game's really solid, he holes a lot of putts.
'You put that together you've got a world-class golfer. I don't want to speak for Bob, it's almost but when you live it a little bit, it's easier to believe it and I think winning in Canada last year, winning here, playing on the Ryder Cup, he's living it.
'I think it just gave him that confidence of I am one of the best players in the world. He always kind of had it, but I feel the same way. Some people can talk themselves into it. Obviously that six, eight week period I just had, I mean it was life-changing basically. Unbelievable.
'Winning once on the PGA Tour was a dream come true. Doing it twice still feels like a dream to be honest and it looked great to follow in Bob's footsteps.
'Seeing him do what he did last year I think kind of proved to all the guys out here that our guys can compete over there. Matt Pavon earlier that year as well. It was nice to copy those guys this year.'
Fox is building his own bid for The Open and said: 'I was in Portrush trying to play a practise round, although the weather was not very kind to us. If we have a couple of days like that for the Open, I think it might rival Carnoustie if it's like that again.
'But it was good to be back. A fantastic golf course, fantastic part of the world and it's great to play a couple of weeks of links. I think we all want some wind to make it interesting, but two weeks of sunshine and no rain and some warm temperatures will be pretty nice.'
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