“I remember pretty much crying the whole way home,” he recalled to CNN Sports, “because I thought I’m never going to get to play The Masters, never going to get to play the US Open or The Open in my life.”
Now 28, Macintyre is preparing to play The Masters at Augusta for a third time, and he admits that he was “small-minded” to react so fatefully to a round of golf. But he says he’s just so competitive that he couldn’t help it.
“If I got beat at something when I was younger, I’d be crying. You wouldn’t believe how competitive I am,” he said with a grin. “If I play a game of pool or a game of darts now, I’m not playing for the fun of it. That’s not me. I’m playing to win.”
The soft-spoken MacIntyre is one of the more understated stars on the PGA Tour. Growing up in the tiny Scottish town of Oban (population 8,140), stepping into the bright lights of the American sports world has required some adjustments. “I’m a shy guy,” he explained. “I’m the complete opposite of the Americans.”
In 2024, he admitted that he’d found it difficult to settle in the US; he was homesick, and he returned to Scotland to get away from the circus for a while. Back home, he says, nobody makes a fuss of him: “I get treated as Bob, the boy that’s grown up in Oban. I don’t get treated as Robert MacIntyre, the golfer on the PGA Tour.”
His R&R trip was transformative; within a few months, he’d won twice on the tour.
Just as there are two separate worlds that he lives in, MacIntyre also says that there are two different versions of himself.
“I think I’ve got two personalities,” he explained to CNN. “On the golf course, I’m very serious. Off the golf course, I’m very chilled out, easygoing, I love a laugh.”
The American golf scene is something he’s learned to experience in small doses, “dipping in and dipping out,” of the tour.
“I come out here and it’s, ‘Lights, camera, action,’ everywhere, people shouting silly things. I accept that when I’m out here,” he said. “I think I’ve just worked out that the things that annoy me are going to annoy me for the rest of my life in America, and the things that I enjoy, I’m going to enjoy for the rest of my life in America.”
MacIntyre has also had to adjust to the fact that what was once his hobby is now his profession, and he’s had to consciously find ways of falling back in love with the game. At the same time, he’s learned that he needs to keep his guard up because it’s not just his opponents that might get the better of him.
“The eyeballs are always on you,” he cautioned. “There’s always someone with a camera to try and catch you out. They’re just looking for that next story. And for me, it’s about not being that next story.”
At the Canadian Open in June, his breakout win was such a good story that everybody wanted to tell it. At short notice, he needed a caddie, so he called up his dad, Dougie, a greenskeeper in Scotland. A few days later, they were celebrating the biggest win of his career together.
“I’m crying with joy, but I’m laughing because I didn’t think this was possible,” MacIntyre said at the time. “This is the guy who has taught me the game of golf, and I just can’t believe I have done this with him on the bag.”
Six weeks later, he was back on more familiar territory, winning the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond and becoming the first Scottish golfer to win two PGA Tour events in the same season since Sandy Lyle in 1988. That same year, Lyle became the Masters champion and MacIntyre hopes there will be a green jacket in his future, too.
“That’s the plan,” he beamed. “It’s one of my dreams. I met (Sandy) for the first time in 2021, a lovely guy. I speak to him quite a bit on message and he’s given me a few tips on Augusta. My dream is to win the green jacket, and I think the course sets up reasonably nicely for me.”
Like many golfers, MacIntyre has long been seduced by the allure of Augusta National. “It’s not just one thing, it’s everything about it,” he explained. “When you watch on TV, you see the beautiful flowers, it’s just the most perfect setting for a golf course in the world.”
MacIntyre makes no secret of his desire to become the best golfer in the world and he knows that he must always be ready to make the most of his opportunities: “One chance, that’s all I ask for, just one chance at a major championship and then, hopefully, it can fall my way.”
The small-town boy is making his way on the game’s biggest stage, which is an appropriate metaphor for how he thinks he will succeed.
“Golf is a process, so long as I’m achieving my little processes, then you get the big trophyat the end of the week.”
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