There was a time when Robert MacIntyre couldn’t afford entry fees to junior golf competitions in Scotland.
His father Dougie was good at football, golf and shinty, but he couldn’t finance a full-time career. MacIntyre’s older sisters have always been “right into their horse riding,” he says, but even they made sacrifices to help him follow his dream of playing golf for a living.
Not that the 27-year-old MacInytre was out of pocket before arriving at the RBC Canadian Open with two prior DP World Tour wins and top-15s in three of the four major championships. He has earned sums most of us will never see or imagine.
But when he said his parents were now mortgage-free after winning his first PGA Tour title, you didn’t need anything else to know where his priorities sit and where his heart lies when it isn’t on his sleeve.
“I couldn’t play in golf tournaments as a junior because we couldn’t afford it,” he said. “I think that made me – that makes me fight and never give up, I think not being given anything. I mean, they gave me quite a bit. They gave me the opportunity, but never, never was I spoon-fed, I was always fighting for every bit of it.”
MacIntyre’s parents Dougie and Carol are foster parents. He is a golfer never without perspective when times were tough and missed cuts were getting on his nerves. MacIntyre spoke to the sadness of previously bidding farewell to people who have become his family.
You might be wondering what relevance the MacIntyre family background has to his final round 68 that carried him to victory on Sunday. But the down-to-earth, grounded nature of him and this contingent from Oban has played a vital role in his rise on the DP World Tour, formerly the European Tour, and now the PGA Tour.
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“I think it makes you realise that hitting a white ball around a golf course isn’t the most important thing. I mean, I’ve been in tears over it, kids going away from you. They become family. They have been in a tough spot. I wasn’t given everything as a kid. I was given a great opportunity.”
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Robert MacIntyre: Dad steps in to help him to RBC Canadian Open win
MacIntyre has chopped and changed caddies in recent months. Mikey Burrow was his looper who is now with Danny Willett, but after a five-week stint with Scott Carmichael, Burrow was back on the bag at the PGA Championship where MacIntyre finished tied for eighth.
After Visa trouble at the start of last week in Canada, as well as his father having no credentials and also losing their yardage book, the necessary paperwork was eventually arranged. So was a smaller Titleist caddie bag for his father, as opposed to a tour bag. He tried to get hold of other carriers before landing on Dad, but many didn’t fancy just a one-weeker.
“He’s done a great job this week. He just kept telling me, ‘We just stay in the fight’, and he actually said to me – with four or five holes to go, he goes, ‘If we play this in one-under par, they got to come get ya’.
“He knows what to say, when to say it, and, I mean, he thought that being here was a bit easier on his own mental health with watching the scores on the app, but I don’t think this week’s done him great with the head because of the stress. But look, he’s the guy that’s taught me the game of golf and he knows my game inside out, and I can’t thank him enough for this week.”
When he tapped in for par on the 72nd hole at Hamilton Golf and Country Club in Ontario, to the anguish of the second-placed Ben Griffin, the celebration wasn’t raucous like that of Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin 12 months ago. They were wholesome, contained and they represented a realisation of what MacIntyre had achieved, with the memories of once being unable to scrape the pennies together for his entry fees at the forefront of their minds.
So what now? A big celebration back in Oban? Maybe. Dougie will go back to working at Glencruitten Golf Club while MacIntyre said he will probably play in this week’s Memorial Tournament at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Muirfield Village. He knows who his caddie will be, but he refuses to say just yet.
“Everything that I’ve done in my life has been with the support of my family. The game of golf was passed down the generations from – I mean, I got it from my dad and luckily he’s a head man in Oban, at Glencruitten, and we’ve got a house between where you cross the road for four holes over the road at Glencruitten and we used to go out every night in the summer, no matter the weather, we would play four holes every night. He taught me the game of golf.”
“Then this week when I phoned him to come and caddie for me, to be honest, I was just coming here to play a golf tournament,” he added. “There was no expectation, there was a lot going on with Visas and stuff during the week and to win it with him on the bag is just – to be honest, I still can’t believe that it happened.”
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“It’s the reason I play golf,” were MacIntyre’s words after playing in his first match for Europe at the 2023 Ryder Cup. His place on the team was largely attributed to his runner-up finish at the Scottish Open in July where his heart was ripped out by Rory McIlroy.
He admitted to nearly crying when walking off the driving range before hitting his first tee shot in Rome as if he was off to the gallows. MacIntyre was crying when he won the RBC Canadian Open on Sunday with his father on the bag. He might’ve just discovered the real reason why he plays golf.
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