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USA Today
09-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
British Open is coming, but Robert MacIntyre is solely focused on Genesis Scottish Open
Robert MacIntyre made a boyhood dream come true last year at the Genesis Scottish Open. The pride of Oban, a resort town in Scotland's Firth of Lorn where his father works as the greenkeeper at a local course, MacIntyre played the final five holes in 4 under to shoot 3-under 67 at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick and become the first Scot since Colin Montgomerie to win on home soil in 25 years and just the second to do so in the 42 times it has been played since first being contested on the DP World Tour in 1972. MacIntyre grew up attending the tournament as 'a wee lad' when it was played at Loch Lomond. One year earlier, MacIntyre had his heart ripped out after Rory McIlroy birdied the final two holes to steal the trophy. 'I dreamed of playing in it and once I got playing in it, I'm thinking, let's win this thing, and obviously coming close,' MacIntyre said. 'It was the most special thing to happen in my golfing career… It's the one I wanted and it's the one I got. It's just, I've watched it as a kid growing up, and it meant a lot.' MacIntyre, 28, has made steady progress during his career, rising to No. 14 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He didn't focus on golf until the age of 17 after growing up playing his favorite sport, shinty, a team sport with a stick and ball that is popular in the Scottish Highlands and often draws comparisons to field hockey. He played for his local club, Oban Camanachd, but MacIntyre's family recognized his special talent as a golfer and went all in to make his dream a reality. 'We used to have a horse for my sisters, and couldn't afford to do both, and my sisters gave up the horse and gave me a chance to go and travel some within Britain,' MacIntyre recalled. He came to the U.S. and played college golf at McNeese State from 2014-15, and turned pro in 2017 ahead of the Mena Tour's Ayla Golf Championship, a golf tour in the Middle East and North Africa. 'What's the point going out here and not making any money?' he explained. But he was quick to point out that turning pro wasn't a rash decision. 'I'm someone who is not scared to take risks. I'm not someone scared to make a big decision. But they are not rash. They are calculated,' he said. 'If you get an opportunity, you just, the way I do it, I go straight at it. If you've got a chance, just straight at it, what's the worst that can happen? You fail. I feel like that's the way I've done my whole career. So far, slow and steady.' The Scottish lefty shot 78 in his pro debut but bounced back with a course-record 64 to finish third, and two weeks later claimed the Sahara Kuwait Open. He never looked back, going on to claim his maiden DP World Tour title in Cyprus in November 2020. He won his first PGA Tour event last June at the RBC Canadian Open with his dad as his caddie. The Scottish Open was even a more miraculous fairytale – Data Golf estimated he had a 2.8 percent chance of winning the tournament after he missed a 6-foot par putt at No. 10 to drop three strokes behind leader Ludvig Aberg. His deficit remained unchanged until he drained a 41-foot birdie putt at the par-3 14th. The make percentage from 40-45 feet last season? A mere 3.85 percent. That momentum shift combined with a favorable ruling that granted him free relief at the par-5 16th turned the tide. It was determined that MacIntyre, who tugged his drive into some of the thickest rough on the course, was standing on a sprinkler head and was able to drop in shorter grass that provided a better lie. MacIntyre wears three metal spikes on the front of his shoe and said he never would've felt the sprinkler if he'd only had plastic spikes. 'It was just a lucky break. You use the rules to get an advantage. You stand on a sprinkler, you're due relief,' he said. 'That was just the one kiss I needed.' Still two strokes back, he nailed a 6-iron from 248 yards to 6 feet to set up an eagle and tie Adam Scott for the lead. Statistically, it was the best approach shot he hit all year. Then he pulled one last rabbit out of his hat, sinking a 22-foot birdie putt at 18 for the win. 'Standing over the putt, I was just like, 'This is the chance you wanted. Take it,'' MacIntyre said. 'Aimed just outside the right edge. It was a double breaker. It was breaking early to the right and then the last, like, eight feet was just peeling left. 'I thought it was half a roll short when it was going. It just looked like it was running out of legs. Yeah, it was just perfect.' MacIntyre had tagged his national open the championship he most wanted to win outside of the four majors. He nearly stole the U.S. Open last month, rallying from a nine-shot deficit early in the final round with a 68 and held the clubhouse lead until J.J. Spaun finished with birdies on the final two holes to win by two. 'I learned so much; that I can handle the heat under the gun of that,' said MacIntyre, who clapped for Spaun when he watched his 64-foot putt drop on TV. 'That was my biggest thing.' While other players in the field at this week's Scottish Open may be looking ahead to Royal Portrush and a chance to win the Claret Jug at the season's final major, the British Open, MacIntyre's eyes are still firmly set on this week's prize. 'Every time I pitch up, I want to win it again,' he said. 'I want to keep this trophy every year until I stop playing.'
The National
30-01-2025
- Climate
- The National
Brandon Robinson Thompson just misses historic 59 after last-hole bogey in stunning opening round in Bahrain
With LIV Golf taking a starry field to India, plus Rory McIlroy and many of the rest of the sport's most gilded names heading for Pebble Beach, the Bapco Energies Bahrain Championship is battling for airtime this week. And yet for the majority of Thursday morning it appeared as though a journeyman from the Isle of Wight was going to grab all the limelight on the fairways of the Royal Golf Club in Riffa. The DP World Tour – formerly the European Tour – is in its 53rd year. More than 10,200 players have played on it. Only once has any of them ever broken 60. Oliver Fisher became the first to shoot 59 in the tour's history, back in 2018. And, because of a bogey at the final hole of the opening round in Bahrain for Brandon Robinson-Thompson, he remains the only man to do it. Robinson Thompson acknowledged he was aware history could be beckoning from the ninth hole onwards. By that stage, he had made just 29 blows and had two eagles on his card. With just the par-4 18th to play, he was on 12-under par. The adrenalin was clearly pulsing as he chased the birdie he needed for history, as he proceeded to push his drive into the waste ground to the left of the fairway. He had hit 16 of the 17 previous greens in regulation, but his approach to the last went long into the rough. It took him three to get down from there, meaning he signed for a 61. No mean feat, and good enough for a three-stroke lead at the end of the day. But, still, he acknowledged it was tinged with a little feeling of what might have been. 'I didn't really picture it this morning when it was raining and there were forecasts of super-strong winds,' Robinson Thompson said. 'I'm very happy to get off to the start I did. [There is a] little bit of a sour taste in my mouth, but I holed my fair share. 'It was just an accumulation of a lot of good decision-making and execution. I wouldn't say it was perfect by a long way, but I was smart when I had to be and I hit a couple of shots to 25, 30, 35 feet. Luckily, I made a couple of those.' The majority of Robinson Thompson's career to date has been played in professional golf's margins, including stints on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica and the Mena Tour. The 32-year-old Englishman is probably not used to having his every moved tracked, but his back nine was suddenly under the scanner as '59-watch' gripped. The broadcasters were in place to see his putt at the 16th, which would have given him a fifth successive birdie, lip out. 'It looked in the whole way,' he said. 'I can't complain. Walking off the green one of the cameramen said, 'That was an opportunity, just make the next one'. Then I made a 40-footer on the next hole. Shout out to the camera guy. 'I think it's my lowest round as a professional, let alone on the DP World Tour. It has to be up there with a Sunday to close out a Challenge Tour event last year. 'I know it's the first round but 61, that's up there. Everyone keeps saying [it's tough to follow a low round] but I'll just keep doing the same stuff.' The chasing pack contains some other players who have also had a good look around during their careers. Callum Tarren, who shot an eight-under 64 and is in second place, likened the Royal Golf Club's 'crazy greens' to his time playing in China. The 34-year-old Englishman says he is trying to consolidate his career after a tough time in the United States last year. At one point in 2024, he missed the cut in seven tournaments out of eight on the PGA Tour. 'Last season wasn't great for me, I had a pretty poor year,' Tarren said. 'Having status out here from the PGA Tour last year was like a bonus. 'I'm just trying to take advantage of the starts I get and get back. It's going to be windy tomorrow, the wind picked up considerably towards the end.' Local golfers reckon the main defence the course has against tour pros is the weather, which is usually blustery. The course was designed by Colin Montgomerie in 2008, and it has plenty of quirks. The layout is adjacent to a water treatment plant, and there are earthworks within the perimeter of the course. The plot is split almost exactly in half by pipes running over ground. At points where the course skirts the neighbouring villas, there are signs saying 'no resident buggies' are permitted. Presumably that is lest they get mistaken for the fleet of club buggies that are in action during the competition. That includes at a number of points where volunteers are employed to ferry the players from one green to the next tee box. Given the large spaces between many of the holes, the walk is a lot longer than the 7,302 yards the course itself plays. According to Richie Ramsay, whose six-under 66 was good enough for a share of third, the wind provides the biggest test. 'There are some accessible pins out there, the fairways are a bit wider and the rough isn't as thick as in previous years, but the wind isn't easy,' Ramsay said. 'It gusts at points out there and the greens can be slopey, so, if you get on the wrong side of them in the wind, it can be quite tricky.'
