Robert MacIntyre was a long way off his best during The Scottish Open last week, but he’ll be hopeful of bouncing back with a solid showing at The Open Championship this week.
MacIntyre was the defending champion at The Scottish Open, and he was clearly bitterly disappointed with his performance at The Renaissance Club.
After his final round on Sunday, an angry MacIntyre admitted that he played terribly at The Scottish Open.
Now he will be working incredibly hard on the range at Royal Portrush to ensure that his game is ready to contend at The Open.
In general, the 28-year-old Scot has actually played very well this season. MacIntyre came close to winning the US Open in June, but lost out by just two strokes to J.J. Spaun in the end.
And if he can rediscover his best stuff this week, he undoubtedly has the game needed to contend at an Open Championship.
Robert McIntyre sends fans apology message en route to The Open
MacIntyre is well-known for his hard work ethic.
And he will need to get down to business on the driving range at Portrush this week.
He was clearly absolutely distraught with the way that he played in his homeland last week.
And on his way to Northern Ireland, MacIntyre felt the need to apologise to the fans who followed him around at The Renaissance Club.
MacIntyre said: “Sorry to anyone who watched me slash it around at the Scottish Open this weekend. We go again at my favourite links course in the world.“
Golf is incredibly difficult, and MacIntyre does not need to apologise to anybody.
Robert MacIntyre blames equipment change for Scottish Open struggles
The Scot addressed the media at Royal Portrush on Tuesday morning.
And he responded when asked by reporters why he performed so poorly at The Renaissance Club last week.
MacIntyre said: “I think Sunday after the round I picked apart some things that will help me going forward. We don’t play much links golf. We play maybe four events, if we’re lucky.
“I changed to Titleist equipment at the start of last year, the irons, and they’re brilliant 99 percent of the time, but I haven’t used them when it was brick hard, firm, when it was hardly any grass. Sometimes your ball was setting on just like, I don’t know, it was almost dirt-like, it was so firm, so compacted. The irons I use are to help me get the club out of the ground because I’m steep. Last week, because it was brick hard, the club wouldn’t go in the ground. So it was just the short irons I was struggling with.
“Once we picked that apart Sunday after the round and once I’d spoken to you guys and actually had calmed down and was thinking clear, it was almost like there’s a learning curve. Then we spoke to people yesterday about how we can be ahead of the game before it happens. This week it’s not going to happen. We’ve had some rain. It’s greener already on the range. I’m seeing the strike off the face. I’m seeing the ball flight up in the sky. So a completely different week this week.“
That’s a great point that MacIntyre made about his irons not being as good when playing off extremely hard turf.
And it will be interesting to see whether he changes anything heading into The Open this week.
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