Robert MacIntyre’s shoulders were “slumped” and he “wasn’t himself” just weeks before winning the RBC Canadian Open.
The 27-year-old Scotsman made it no secret that living in America isn’t for him and his girlfriend Shannon when speaking on Wednesday and said the new US environment dampened his mood earlier this season which was visibly clear to his family.
He missed five cuts earlier in 2024 on the PGA Tour which led to a three-week break at home in Oban in April. MacIntyre said he and a handful of other European players, who also earned their PGA Tour cards for this season, have previously felt the same.
But after settling back into tour action with the more relaxed Zurich Classic team event at the end of April, MacIntyre’s wind-down paid dividends. He came tied for eighth at the PGA Championship and now, he can call himself the Canadian Open champion after holding his nerve to win last Sunday with his dad on the bag.
“The bad days weren’t horrific. I just wasn’t myself. I wasn’t the happy-go-lucky kind of guy. I was turning up to golf tournaments, shoulders slumped, I wasn’t ready or excited to play golf because I knew it was just a different environment,” MacIntyre said to media in the week of the Memorial Tournament which he chose to skip after a six-week run of tour activity.
“But I think I’m quite good at learning from that – when I’m not enjoying it, people around me can see when I’m not enjoying it – it was so obvious and it’s OK because I’m not the only person that’s going through that. Probably at least half of the guys from the European Tour were feeling it because we speak a lot, we’re always speaking, whether it’s in the locker room or players’ lounges.
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“We’re always talking about it, and I just noticed that and then we got home back to Scotland for three weeks there and it really opened mine and Shannon’s eyes that this Orlando lifestyle, the American lifestyle probably isn’t for us, and that’s OK.
“Living in America or living anywhere else in the world isn’t for everyone and I just think we’re learning on the road. Obviously, I’m renting a place in Orlando just now and I’m probably going to have a base out there for the length of time that I’m playing the PGA Tour, just to make travelling easier, but we don’t need to live there. It’s just a base to drop back when I’ve got a week off or I can’t go home, whether it’s the next events on the other coast.
“Scotland’s our home and it’ll always be our home and we enjoyed coming back for those three weeks and then the results have shown that I’ve been in the right mind frame from that point on.”
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Robert MacIntyre: European Tour players are just like ‘one big family’
MacIntyre excelled on the DP World Tour, formerly named the European Tour, before heading to the States. You might have even seen footage of the monster putt he holed at the 2018 Foshan Open on the Challenge Tour which helped him seal his first DP World Tour card.
With wins in Cyprus in 2020 and Italy in 2022, he qualified for Europe’s Ryder Cup team in 2023 where he earned 2.5 points and a healthy contribution to his side’s win against America in Rome.
The team Europe dressing room is arguably the epitome of the camaraderie and family feel that MacIntyre believes doesn’t exist to the same extent on the PGA Tour where he is now forging his path.
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Looking back on an evening he recently shared with fellow European and PGA Tour graduate Jorge Campillo to celebrate the Spaniard’s birthday, MacIntyre was reminded of what the DP World Tour was all about.
“I keep saying it – in Europe, a lot of guys are just travelling themselves. In America, I feel a lot of guys are travelling with a team of say four, with their partner included in that and they don’t need to find someone to have lunch with, they don’t need to find someone to have dinner with, and the guys coming from Europe – we do it differently,” he said.
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“We normally travel on our own. We go to Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. We go across the world, normally it’s just you and other golfers. It can get lonely if you’re just eating dinner on your own, room service and whatnot, I’ve experienced that.
“It’s fine, I’m starting to learn, and I think I’ve grown close with the majority of the 10 guys from Europe who have got their cards with me because everyone is in the same boat, and it’s fine, we’re all experienced, and we deal with it.
“It’s good to grow close to these guys and that dinner on Sunday night with Jorge (Campillo) and his caddie, Vincent Norrman, his caddie, my dad, my girlfriend. We all went to dinner for Jorge’s birthday, and it just made me realise that that’s what Europe’s about, that’s what the DP World Tour’s about, it’s travelling the world but we play golf, we try and beat each other as much as we can, but we’re one big family and it’s so cool to see.”
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