Robert MacIntyre admits he has been unable to prevent ‘disaster’ from happening at The Scottish Open

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Robert MacIntyre experienced a really difficult afternoon on the links at The Scottish Open on Friday.

MacIntyre shot a second round 71, with two late birdies enabling him to make the cut on the number at The Scottish Open.

The home favourite just didn’t have his best stuff on Friday at The Renaissance Club, it really was as simple as that.

MacIntyre proved his class at the US Open last month, losing out to the eventual winner J.J. Spaun by just two strokes.

The Scot has plenty of game, and the defending Scottish Open champion will be desperate to give the fans something to cheer about this weekend with a couple of rounds in the mid-60s or better.

However, if he is to do just that, he will need to address one specific weakness as soon as possible.

Robert MacIntyre admits he can’t prevent’ disaster’ from happening at The Scottish Open

The 13th hole just doesn’t suit MacIntyre’s eye.

He is a fader of the ball, and with the wind whipping over his right shoulder, and the fairway cambering right to left, it just seems like it will always be an incredibly difficult hole for him to play well.

And so that proved on Friday. He flared his drive well to the left and had to hit three off the tee.

The 28-year-old from Oban in Scotland was very honest in his appraisal of his driving during round two of the Scottish Open.

MacIntyre said: “Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. This is one of my worst probably driving days of the year. Don’t know what was the case. I didn’t have it under control and then I’ve always got little tweaks that I do throughout the round when I’ve got a certain miss and I was doing the tweaks. Every now and again I would hit an absolute cracker down the middle so I roughly know what it was but I couldn’t trust it because I have a certain move in my swing that I’m happy with and it’s me, it’s my DNA but just every now and again, it crops up with disaster. And the tee shot on 13 was it right there. It was like, do not hit it left. Try to put a certain move, certain strike off the face in a certain wind direction, and it was nowhere else and then obviously didn’t find it. I battled as hard as I could.“

MacIntyre was then asked to explain why he struggles so much with the 13 hole at The Renaissance Club.

He has dropped three shots in two rounds on that hole this week.

The Scot said: “As a left-hander, a dog-leg, even a green sitting right-to-left, short right, long left, fairway sloping that way, so when you’re picking a target up the right-hand side to aim at, if you go any further right, you’re in the rubbish. So you’re trying to aim right, not fade it for me but if I over-fade it I’m in trouble.

“So it’s a difficult one. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a while now, every time I play a Jack Nicklaus design, it’s always kind of the same because he was a fader of the golf ball.

“To be honest to get out of there with what I had done it was a massive achievement because it wasn’t looking good after 13.“

The worst thing for a professional golfer is not being able to trust where their ball is about to fly.

And MacIntyre clearly feels like he is unable to prevent that disastrous high and spinny flare out to the left from happening at The Scottish Open this week.

Robert MacIntyre’s driving stats on the PGA Tour in 2025

MacIntyre’s stats off the tee this season are hard to believe.

When watching him, he looks like an extremely solid driver of the golf ball.

However, the numbers simply don’t back that up:

If MacIntyre is to make any genuine progress and win some really big golf tournaments, he needs to add a different shot to his arsenal when the wind is howling off the right.

Can he add a low piercing draw to his weaponry? Or will it be a case of using a different club when he is faced with that wind?

Whatever route MacIntyre decides to take, he needs to make a change quickly.