Top-ranked Scot Robert MacInttyre has boosted his backroom team in a New Year goal to cement his place inside the top-50 on the World Rankings.
MacIntyre’s recently started working with Welsh-born Stuart Morgan, a former PGA teaching professional who honed his skills working at The Grove golf club under David Leadbetter.
Though it was attending a golfing performance conference at The Belfry, and where Graeme McDowell was a guest, that ‘G Mac’ suggested Morgan take his career further onto the European Tour. The now Austrian-based Morgan first worked on Tour with Nick Dougherty before becoming a ‘performance coach’ with Bernd Wiesberger.
Morgan has been with Wiesberger since the late-2000s and with the Austrian now capturing eight European Tour events, including the 2019 Scottish Open, and with Morgan also help steer the Austrian into this year’s European Ryder Cup team. A week ago, Wieseberger shared second in the Dubai Championship
Morgan said: “I’ve found professional sports people have this different mentality of what they want to do and whether they’re golfers or whatever, it’s all about putting the multi-facets of the human being into place to enable them to play better golf.
Robert MacIntyre with his ‘team’, including new ‘Performance Coach’ Stuart Morgan (green shirt) on the Jumeirah Estates practice range (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.con)
“I’m still PGA qualified instructor but I primarily focus on how we practice better, who do we learn better and how to really enhance performance when we get onto the golf course”.
MacIntyre burst into pro ranks in dramatic manner two years ago this week in being named European Tour ‘Rookie of the Year’ and then a week over a year ago the Oban lefty captured a maiden Tour title in Cyprus.
Earlier this year, MacIntyre finally broke into the world’s top-50 to secure a maiden Masters invitation and with his superb share of 12th good enough to be returning to Augusta National next April.
However, in heading to his final event of the season at this week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai the young Scot has slipped to 64th on the World Rankings and down to a ranking that he had risen to in winning a year ago in Cyprus.
“I have been sitting at World No. 55, No. 60 and so on for a year now and I was doing the same things over and over again”, said MacIntyre speaking exclusively to www.golfbytourmiss.com & the Daily Record (Scotland)
“I spoke to people close to me and in getting on really well with Bernd (Wiesberger), I noticed how his practices and noted his performances like last week, and in the course of getting to know Bernd better, I had met Stuart so I thouht I am going to give this a shot.
“It wasn’t Bernd who suggested I work with Stuart but rather I had spoken to Stuart before about working with him but I never pulled the trigger on it and then on a recent Zoom call we spoke in more detail.
“Some of the things we are changing is hard because it always come back to your personality. I am a very cautious guy. So, some of things we are changing is to get me away from that. It’s been ruthless.
“Stuart’s already making my practice more fun and more entertaining but then also tougher.
“I struggle when I’m back home to practice and I would hit balls for three hours and I’m saying: ‘Okay, what do we do next?’ Stuart’s got me already hitting balls for an hour and then setting me these other tasks and when I complete the tasks my day is done and I’m not on the range for three to four hours.
“It sounds daft but Stuart’s pointing out the obvious but I need that. For me, it’s something telling me: ‘Right, this is good or what I am doing is rubbish’.
“Even in walking off after my practice and competition rounds, he’ll message me and we’ll talk, and it’s helping me. I shot that 82 the last Sunday before last in Portugal and I’ve never played so bad, so it’s all in my head, all mental.
“I reset for last week’s event also here in Dubai with my head clear and it showed in my scoring and now quitely confident of the same this week”.
MacIntyre is among three Scots in the 53-player field.
DP WORLD TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP – SCOTTISH TEE TIME (UK Time)
5.50am – Grant Forrest
7pm – Callum Hill
7.45pm – Robert MacIntyre
