Bob MacIntyre fully believes he can savour a special Sunday at The Open, and the streetwise Scot has vowed to play it smart as he looks to batter brutal and brick-hard Birkdale.
Seven years on from Portrush debut
MacIntyre arrives into the 154th Championship much-changed from the inexperienced young gun who debuted in style seven years ago at Portrush. Nowadays, having come second at a US Open and earned three Top 10s at The Open, he has an expectation of himself and his game. The Oban ace now understands that, if he produces his best, he can get into the mix down the stretch on a sizzling Southport Sunday.
Realistically, there was never any hope of Scotland getting to the World Cup Final. But, in the hours preceding the footballing showpiece in New York, the country's No.1 golfer can win his own sport's biggest prize.
MacIntyre's mindset and expectations
Ryder Cup ace MacIntyre is raring to go and said: "It would be unbelievable if I had a chance or even come close. My job is to go out there, play as well as I can and then, again, I just keep saying it. If I do my job well, I probably will have a chance and that's all I can ask for. I can just go out, manage my game mentally, physically and, if I execute the shots that I'm trying to hit, then why not?"
He reflected on his debut: "In 2019, I felt like I was just being part of the tournament, I was making up the numbers, I was just seeing how well can I do in this event? Whereas now I come here and I know that, if I play the golf I know I can play, I'm going to have a chance come Sunday and that's the difference. In 2019, I didn't know how good I was, I didn't know how good I could be, I just was pitching up, playing golf and no expectation and then I finished well. Now there's more expectation for myself, but it's not pressure. It's just I know that, do you know what, if I play well on this week, I'm going to have a chance."
Balancing expectation and pressure
The balance is tight between shouldering that personal expectation, whilst not piling on undue personal pressure, but he continued: "I'm pretty good at it, I think now I've got a slightly different perspective on it. I come here, do my job. I've got things that I have to do, there's certain things that probably the last couple of weeks I've let slip with my putting. I've probably not done as much performance stuff on the putting and last week, if I'd putted the way I know I can putt, it was going to be a different story, but it wasn't and just going to put a little bit more focus in on that. Getting back to doing what I've done, maybe spend a little bit, half an hour more because I've been putting so much work into the long game because it was a weakness for a while."
There's a ticklist and he continued: "It's the same, it doesn't change, it's just rinse and repeat the whole thing. But you do more work on one area, then you neglect another area and then it just flips from a strength to a weakness and it's about trying to just manage it. And, once you get it in a good spot, just keep it going. I think the last three out of the last four have been really good since I've started to tweak the irons back to what I had before, so it just reconfirms it, stop searching. You can still always test, but stop making big rash decisions so quickly and then it backfires. It's a learning curve."
Strategic approach for Birkdale's conditions
In order to get into the position to strike, MacIntyre reckons he is going to have to use his brain as much as his physical talents. Birkdale is baked. The Scot could only recall a St Andrews Open or an amateur event at Panmure for being as "concrete." This promises to be an old-school Open of brown fairways, rock-hard terrain and MacIntyre has prepared for it. He has done his homework and has gauged the levels of risk against the reward. He will carefully pick the times to unleash or to reign it back.
He gave the insight as he said: "I played back nine on Monday afternoon in the strong winds and it was brutal. A lot of short clubs off tees, just stay out the pot bunkers. On Monday, we sent [fitness coach] Kenny [McKenzie] down the fairways just to see the run outs when it was downwind. I was hitting seven-iron and six-iron off the tees and it's running out 50 yards. So when it's downwind, I mean it's just get it on the short stuff. I mean there's still grass, a lot of grass there, but it's just it's going to get shiny, so it's playing smart. Everyone's probably going to play it different. Some guys are going to flip the coin, go with driver and run the risk of the bunkers. whereas for me, priority is hitting the fairway. I think it's a very strategic course. We've just got to stay disciplined to your gameplan and just hope it's the right one. It's still golf, you've got to hit it where you're aiming it."
The new par there 15th is going to cause some chaos and MacIntyre smiled: "I think it's fine off the 200 yard tee box, I mean I thought they should just put a stand on that one at 240! That back tee, if it's into the wind, I hit a rescue on Monday and didn't even sniff the green. Like 20, 30 yards short. The green's narrow at entrance, so I think it's a great hole off the one forwards."
Fellow Scot Jack McDonald
Jack McDonald is the other Scot in action this week and MacIntyre said: "It's a shame there's not more of us, but I've travelled with Jack quite a bit on the Challenge Tour, so we got on great. Jack's obviously gone to work at Whitecraigs, taking a different avenue now but a great guy and great player."
