MacIntyre confirmed in questions from GolfByTourMiss/Daily Record (Scotland) this second event on the 2024 PGA Tour schedule, commencing on January 11th again at the host Waialae club in Honolulu, in questions asked ahead of the start of the co-sanctioned Fortinet Australian PGA Championship in Brisbane.
The double DP World Tour winner is among four Scots contesting this week’s co-sanctioned event being staged on the famed Royal Queensland Club course in the Queensland capital, and with the event, along also with the Joburg Open in South Africa, being the joint opening events also to the 2023/24 DP World Tour wraparound schedule
He said: “It will be Hawaii at the start of next year.
“There’s so much going on, we’ve organised so much leading up to last week, that literally come Sunday, once it was confirmed, it was just like, get these documents signed. It’s time to get things moving over there. My first event is the Sony Open in Hawaii. That will be the first one”.
Though MacIntyre will head to the Captain Cook discovered Hawaiian Islands not wanting to know that in the near 60-year history of the Sony Open, a Brit or European has yet to taste success.
MacIntyre is among 10 fellow DP World Tour colleagues who earned full PGA Tour stature following the close of last Sunday’s DP World Tour Championship and the final event in the Race to Dubai season. The Scot secured the seventh PGA Tour card on offer in a first-ever arrangement between the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour where the top-10 money-earners, and not otherwise exempt, would be afforded their PGA Tour membership card.
It does mean that MacIntyre and his now fellow nine new PGA Tour members will not return to Europe until well into the New Year, and with MacIntyre also indicating that it will probably not be to July’s co-sanctioned Genesis Scottish Open, and an event he finished runner-up this year to Rory McIlroy, when Scottish golf fans will see him in action on home soil.
MacIntyre said: “Potentially it will be the Scottish Open, probably – it’s so hard.
“Only the best, best players in the world can juggle two tours and with everything going on in the PGA Tour and things, I think when you’re first starting out, you’ve got to go all in.
“Obviously, the DP World Tour is giving you that safety net. It’s almost an invitation to go all in on the PGA Tour. You obviously have to play your minimums to be eligible in case you don’t have a good year on the PGA Tour, you have Europe to fall back on
“If I have a good start in the PGA Tour then I’ll come back and play a lot more in Europe, but it’s kind of, the way it’s structured, the way it looks to me that it’s panning out, is it’s eggs in one basket and go for it”.
That good start Stateside would be greatly helped, if at the close of 2023, the present World No, 56 moved back inside the top-50 on the World Rankings and that also being a top goal over his two weeks ‘Down Under’, to ensure he heads to Hawaii with the added comfort of knowing he will be contesting next April’s Masters at Augusta National.
He said: “I had a great opportunity in Qatar four weeks ago, I had a great opportunity in Dubai last week and I didn’t finish the way I wanted to.
“My wedge play has been, to be honest with you, abysmal. Last week on Sunday I dropped four shots inside 140 yards, on the Sunday.
“There’s four shots, there’s eight World Ranking points, there’s took me up to say 52nd in the world. It’s such fine margins. It’s such small gains and for me, I feel like it’s from that 110 to 150 yards is where I’ll make my most gains. If I can sort that out, I think I’ll be fine. It’s not that I hit bad, bad shots, it’s just I don’t hit the numbers well enough. We’re trying out a couple of things this week to try and help with that.
“That’s why I am here in Australia. It’s plain and simple – win a golf tournament. It’s no – I think if I win this week it’ll be very close. I’m not sure, I’ve not seen what the world ranking points are going to be, but I’m sure it’s – I mean, it should be more than 10. It should be, I’m guessing, 14, 15 with the new structure, 14, 15 with the new structure, which isn’t much, but it would be enough to get across that line”.
And MacIntyre has been afforded a prime two round draw in Brisbane teeing-up alongside three-time defending champ, and local Brisbane-born Cam Smith along with his fellow Aussie and past Scottish Open champ, Min Woo Lee.
Joining MacIntyre for the Australian PGA and Australian Open double is fellow Scots Connor Syme, Grant Forrest and Calum Hill.
