Sometimes you need a wee bump in the road to get you back on the straight and narrow.
In his first 11 events on the European Tour this season, Robert MacIntyre had missed just one cut and was making the kind of steady progress you’d get on a Sunday drive. And then the tour had a break for almost five weeks and MacIntyre misfired on a return to action in Morocco.
Rounds of 78 and 77 saw him depart early while he confessed that he simply wasn’t in the right frame of mind after a prolonged spell back in the auld haunts of hame.
“I think Morocco has actually been a blessing in disguise,” said his coach, David Burns in the wake of MacIntyre’s second successive runners-up finish on the circuit in Denmark on Sunday.
“Understandably, he had played an awful lot of golf in the early season. When you just get your card you have to get points on the board quickly. He was out on tour for nine or 10 weeks which was too long but he was doing well so that’s why he kept playing. The break came and he had too long a break.
READ MORE: Robert MacIntyre is a work in progress but what progress he is making on European Tour
“Both periods of time, playing and not playing, were too extreme. Morocco was a bit of a learning experience for him and he’s kicked on from that.”
He certainly has. In the eight rounds he has played since then, MacIntyre’s highest card has been 70. That purposeful, profitable run has propelled the Scottish rookie up in to 13th place on the Race to Dubai in a rapid rise that would give some folk the bends.
“People were saying that a great season would be for Robert to keep his card,” added Burns. “But we weren’t talking about that. Robert not making the top 60 and qualifying for the Race to Dubai finale would be disappointing for me. We both believed that a top 60 was achievable at the start of the year. I’m delighted what he’s done so far but not surprised.”
MacIntyre continues to prove a point on the European Tour. There’s also one area where he is proving his coach wrong too. And Burns is delighted that he is.
“I have to admit that I was scared about the combination of a rookie player and a rookie caddie,” conceded Burns of the alliance between MacIntyre and his inexperienced bagman, Greg Milne.
“I said to them ‘I hope I’m wrong’. I’m delighted that I have been proved wrong. They’ve done brilliantly and are learning together.”
READ MORE: Robert MacIntyre finishes second again on European Tour in Denmark
The MacIntyre and Milne double act will be back in action this week in the Belgian Knockout event in Antwerp.
It may be one of the lower ranking tournaments on the tour but Burns is keen for MacIntyre to keep the good times rolling.
“He could have taken this week off but in professional sport, momentum is key and I didn’t think there was any point in him sitting about twiddling his thumbs when he’s playing so well,” said Burns.
There will be bigger fish to fry in the weeks ahead on the circuit and MacIntyre will be hoping the form he has found with his putter continues as he seeks to land the ultimate catch of a tour triumph.
“The putting is the area of the game that has improved the most,” noted Burns. “He could always play golf and he was a winner long before he met me but we just needed to work on the technical side a bit.
“He was never going to get consistency with the putter with the putting stroke he had. We are both much happier with what we see.
“There’s not much difference between say a 25th place finish or coming second in terms of his overall play, it’s just he is now getting the putts to drop.
“He feels good with the putter and that breeds confidence. He expects the ball to go in rather than hoping it does.”
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