'I'm not nice to myself' - Bob MacIntyre on overcoming his anger to stay in Open mix
Scot feels he’s in ‘great spot’ heading into weekend at Royal Birkdale after ‘running hot’
Bob MacIntyre reckons he’s in a “great spot” heading into the weekend in the 154th Open after “running hot” early on in his second round and freely admitting afterwards that “I’m not nice to myself”.
The Oban man looked angry and was muttering away like Muttley, Dick Dastardly’s sidekick in the cartoon series Wacky Races, as he made his way down the fourth hole at Royal Birkdale alongside caddie Mike Burrow.
He’d just bogeyed the par-4 third after going through the back of the green and, annoyed by that early setback, it looked as though the lid might come off as he then missed the green at the next hole.
Having used it to good effect in a similar situation at the 15th in the opening circuit, MacIntyre picked his utility club to try and get up and down from a tricky spot and was delighted to do so as it effectively helped turn his day around.
After making a string of pars, the left-hander picked up his first birdie of the day by rolling in a 21-foot birdie putt at the par-5 14th then, helped by a lucky break as his ball came down off a mound on the left of the green and ran round the edge of a bunker, knocked in eagle putt from 39 feet at the par-5 17th.
After a bogey to finish after missing from five feet, he signed for a 69 and a four-under total, leaving him handily-placed heading into the final 36 holes in the event which has seen him record three top-ten finishes in six appearances.
“I think it was a great round of golf,” declared MacIntyre, who described his opening effort as a “near perfect round of golf” and probably knew that it was going to be impossible to replicate and, therefore, was delighted with his day’s work once again. “Yeah, I don't have any other words. It was a great, great round of golf.”
He’d talked all week about needing “patience and discipline” on this fast-running course and was pleased to have shown that after getting hot under the collar early on. “I was running hot there,” he said of his mood coming off the third green and heading down the fourth. “But it was about getting back in the game.”
The world No 15 smiled when he was asked if he is constantly talking to himself out on the course to remind himself what he needs to be concentrating on. “I mean, I’m not nice to myself,” he confessed. “That's just the standard I set. I felt like for a couple of holes we switched off.”
Referring to his approach at the third from the right rough, he said: “The shot was hit in the heart of the green. I was kind of being a bit aggressive, trying to get it in tight to that back right pin, knowing that just long was okay, but it ran that couple yards further on into the rough.”
He also missed the green at the sixth due to struggling to work out if he was going to get flyers. “That was when I really had to reset what I was doing,” he added. “We really had to switch on, to be honest, because it was getting out of hand.”
MacIntyre reckoned his eagle putt at the 17th was “going like a steam train” but was happy that it was dead centre as it disappeared into the hole and didn’t mind too much that he immediately gave one of those shots back at the last.
“Yeah, great spot,” he said of his position heading into the weekend after giving himself a chance to win the Genesis Scottish Open for a second time last weekend before finishing joint-third. “Can't really be in a better spot going into the weekend. It's where I want to be, especially after last week with the game.”
Late in the day, MacIntyre was joined in the final two rounds by Jack McDonald, who, helped by holing out for an eagle-2 from 114 yards at the tenth, squeezed on one over. “After the heartbreak of missing the cut at Troon (two years ago), this is a huge achievement,” said the 33-year-old Ayrshireman.
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