This funny old game of golf, as Robert MacIntyre said with a reflective smile yesterday, “throws some things at you.”
So too does technology. As MacIntyre and his manager, Iain Stoddart, wrestled with the various fixtures and fittings of a laptop, in an effort to hook up to a video conference call with the assembled media, the eventual connection of said call should’ve been accompanied by the gasp of ‘oh boy’ that Walter Cronkite spouted when Apollo 11 landed on the bloomin’ moon.
It’s probably easier to win a PGA Tour event than log into a Microsoft Teams meeting. After the emotional and triumphant tumult of his breakthrough victory at the RBC Canadian Open on Sunday, MacIntyre is back among his ain folk of Oban for a couple of days – and couple of gentle libations too – to reflect, rejoice, recharge and refocus with “the people who really matter in life.”
In this game, there’s not much time to draw breath. The 27-year-old will have to get his golfing head screwed back on for next week’s US Open at Pinehurst.
You’ve got to savour the successes when they come along, though, especially when you’ve just made your PGA Tour breakthrough with your dad acting as caddie. What was he saying about golf throwing some things at you again?
“I didn't believe it was going to happen last week,” said MacIntyre, after a career-changing week which earned him a two-year PGA Tour exemption, propelled him up into the world’s top 40 and opened more doors than a porter.
“Even at the prize giving, they (the tournament officials) are all speaking and I'm actually laughing out loud because I’m thinking, ‘I'm going to wake up from this dream’. But it was real.”
MacIntyre likes to keep it real too. Family comes first for a young Scot who remains as down to earth as a muddied shinty stick. His decision to return to Oban for a flying visit was as understandable as it was inevitable, even if some in certain golfing circles have questioned his motives.
Blimey, some harrumphing online cynics even questioned his sense of ambition.
This week, MacIntyre could’ve been playing in Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament, a star-studded, signature event with an outrageous prize fund of $20 million.
Having played six weeks in a row and finished that stint with the giddy and draining high of a victory, the Ryder Cup player was determined to get back to the auld haunts of hame and re-energise himself ahead of next week’s third major of the season.
It’s a process that has served him well throughout his professional career so who are we to judge?
“It’s been a good six weeks,” he said. “But the mental aspect of that stretch was high, and then winning last week was an even bigger high.
“If I played Memorial, the US Open and the Travelers (Championship) the week after, that’s nine weeks in a row. Not many players play nine weeks in a row, except probably me, the madman.
“With everything that was going on, there was no disrespect (meant) about pulling out of Jack Nicklaus’s event.
“This was all about what was right for me. I just thought it was the right thing to have a week off. It could have been at any event. Yes, I get that it (the Memorial) is an elevated event and it’s $20 million or whatever.
“But does preparing right for the US Open not show ambition? It’s up to you.”
The normality of life in his native land has always given MacIntyre a sense of perspective. It also gives him fresh purpose for the return to his golfing crusades in far off pastures.
“I was never going to have a proper party,” he said to those who assumed he was going to drain the Oban hostelries dry. “It was all about getting home to the people who matter.
“Dad and I have just done something really special. He's had more messages than I have. We’ll probably have a family dinner. The whole crew will be there. But we won't be crying this time.”
The clouds of MacIntyre’s well-documented struggles with the American way of life have had a silver lining. Orlando will remain a base for business. Oban, though, will forever be the place that gives him most pleasure.
“Scotland's my home and I think it's always going to be,” he smiled. After a life-changing week for MacIntyre, some things don’t change.
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