Two huge moments of Robert MacIntyre’s career have come with his father Dougie on the bag.
Another memory could be delivered soon but in a completely different fashion.
The popular Scotsman won his first PGA Tour title in Canada earlier this season with Dougie on carrying duties, rubberstamping his credentials as one of the world’s top players. This came nine months after significantly contributing to Europe’s win over America in Rome on his Ryder Cup debut.
A decade before that, Dougie carried for the teenage Bob at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland, when he was just a teenage amateur and starstruck by the prospect of playing with home favourite Richie Ramsay.
Not to disparage Ramsay’s more-than-respectable résumé of four wins on the European Tour, but MacIntyre has acted on the potential he realised that week to eclipse a player he once couldn’t believe he was sharing the fairways with.
Fast-forward to 2024, Dougie will need a caddie of his own as he prepares to play with his son, now the Scottish Open champion too, at the long-standing Alfred Dunhill pro-am event played at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns at the start of October, seeking success with his own ball.
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Bob MacIntyre dad gearing up for Alfred Dunhill Links Championship
“It’s decent,” is how MacIntrye described his father’s golf to NCG at the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
“He used to be really good, but he hardly plays now. I messaged him the other day saying, ‘I hope you’re practising, how’s the game?’ He replied, ‘hitting it good, thumbs up’, so I’m sure the nerves will come when we get to it.
“Yeah, so I think he’s playing off five or six now. If he plays well, he can play better than that. But if he plays bad, he can be really bad. It’s just about going out there for us two and enjoying it.
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“It was the first event I ever played, like a professional event, as an amateur and my dad caddied for me then, so it’s a special one for us.”
MacIntyre has played a hell of a lot of golf this year. He is 24 PGA Tour events down, not to mention two appearances in Australia back in December. Despite some concerns at the start of the year that life in the States wasn’t for him, he soon acclimatised by entering the winner’s circle, albeit happening in Ontario.
Homesickness seemed his only issue at one stage, but perhaps the physical extremities of such an active schedule caused his withdrawal from last week’s BMW Championship. The 28-year-old pulled out with a lower back injury, which led to round-the-clock work from him and his team to be fit enough for the Tour Championship at East Lake where the winner receives $25 million.
Little aches and pains culminated into an injury, but arguably at a good time. Such was the quality of his season on tour, two wins and six top 10s in total, MacIntyre could miss the event last week at Castle Pines in Colorado, the second of three events that make up the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and still enter the FedEx Cup finale in Georgia ranked 17th in the season-long standings.
“I had no expectation coming in here. I’m just happy to be on the golf course this week playing,” he said.
“Every day is going to be a bit of a struggle. The team around me has put some effort into it since Saturday. It’s been non-stop, everyone in the whole team has been chipping in, whether it’s the physio, my girlfriend Shannon, or my manager. Everyone just came together and we were like right, ‘How do we get me on that 1st tee?’
“It’s nothing long-term, it’s just happened, it was almost in the post for me, just from little niggles I’ve had elsewhere. My back has taken the brunt of it and it just happened to be last week that it came in, and it could’ve been a couple of weeks down the line, but it happened last week and I just got on with it.
“I would’ve given this one right till the end. Every day, I felt a little bit better and we made a Plan A and a Plan B on Tuesday. We went with Plan A first and thankfully, it came together and we were able to get out here and hit it.
“I need a rest. I’m not built for 100 degrees, so we need to get home, recover and just try and enjoy ourselves.”
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