Top-ranked Scot Robert MacIntyre has arrived in Hawaii for a third time in his career but with this latest visit the start of the most important chapter in his short pro golfing career.
MacIntyre is among five PGA Tour rookies, and in a first, to have secured 2024 season membership in finishing top-10, and not already exempt, on last year’s DP World Tour money list to be teeing up in this week’s $US 8.3m Sony Open in Honolulu.
For MacIntyre, it will be the first of three PGA Tour events in succession as a full Tour member, also including next week’s American Express at La Quinta at Palm Springs and then crossing California to the west coast for the Farmers Insurance Open being staged again along the cliff tops north of San Diego.
The trio of events boast a combined prize purse of a whopping $US 25.7m.
In contrast, four more of the 10 who automatically qualified for their 2024 PGA Tour card are in Dubai for this fortnight’s back-to-back DP World Tour events that carry a combined $US11.5m in prize money. The only PGA Tour qualifier not playing at all these next two weeks is Frechman Victor Perez, winner of the 2019 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
MacIntyre jetted out of his beloved Scotland last Wednesday in the company of his England caddy Mike Burrow and manager Iain ‘Stoddy’ Stoddart, and with trio arriving into Orlando and heading straight to Macintyre’s new US base, and that’s rented premises on the elite Isleworth Estate.
The current World No. 58 ranked player, however, admitted it was an emotional moment heading into what is an eighth year in the play-for-pay ranks, leaving living in his beloved Oban for a second time in his career, having spent two years in 2014 and ’15 at college in Louisiana.
“Well, you have been given a golden ticket, almost”, said MacIntyre.
“The way the cards are working, if you play bad on the PGA Tour, you are still going to have a good card in still being a member of the DP World Tour.
“It’s almost like a free go. That’s the way Isee it. A free go at the PGA Tour.
“Go and get your card secured up by August and then come back to the DP World Tour and then, hopefully, you play well and secure that card.
“For me, it was like a free shot.”
Indeed, MacIntyre wasted little time meeting the management of the famed and private Isleworth Country Club that played host between 2004 and 2013 to the Tavistock Cup, and won three times by Tiger Woods, while the club also hosted the Hero World Challenge in 2014 before the event moved to The Bahamas.
“Where I was based in Oban has got me so far and could technically still get better in Oban but in the States will make it easier to practice and easier to get better,” he said.
“America is America. It’s completely different from where I am from. It’s going to really take a bit of time to get used to. Some things are really going to annoy me, some things I am going to love.
“But I am doing it for one thing. Not for a lifestyle change, it’s all for my golf game. I think being here on the PGA Tour and based here in Orlando will improve everything.
“If I use it right and practice the right ways, it can only help.
“Whether the results get better, I don’t know. That depends on me and my mind at events and stuff like that but as for becoming an all-round golfer, the facilities can only improve me. I am amazed at the work I can get done.
Robert MacIntyre’s page on the PGA Tour ‘player’ website
As well, the weather is slightly better in Orlando than currently back home in Oban.
“Last Friday, I left the golf course at dark and was still in a t-shirt”, he said smiling.
“It has wowed me a little bit, the whole place but in the States will make it easier to practice and easier to get better”.
MacInytre and his team flew out of Orlando for the near 10-hour flight to Honolulu on Sunday and, as mentioned, he’s no stranger to travelling to America’s 50th State in representing his McNeese State University team.
“Hawaii is one of my favourite places in the world”, he said. “It’s probably one of the quickest rounds of the year for obvious reasons. You finish and you are on the beach. I really enjoy it
“It’s somewhat similar to home with the wind, if not the weather. And the courses are reasonable firm”.
Though this third and extended Stateside visit, and with a US residency visa now in his passport, is far, far more meaningful.
A win would earn him a virtual three-year PGA Tour exemption till the end of 2016 while a top-five would see him move inside the top-50 on the World Rankings and a big step to earning a Masters invitation, and what would be a first Augusta visit since 2021.
“I am doing this for one thing”, MacIntyre added. “It’s not for a lifestyle change, it’s all for my golf game.
“I have dreams I want to achieve and I have more chances of achieving them by making this move.”
If MacIntyre has one concern is his weight.
“It’s too easy to eat certain things, so I’m trying to be as disciplined as I can”, he said. “It’s why I’m pushing the gym work, to try and kill extra calories.”
Joining MacIntyre in Hawaii will be fellow Scot Martin Laird, with the recently turned 41-year-old, now heading into 17th PGA season and a Sony Open where he also made his Tour debut in the 2008 event finishing T55th.
He secured the 125th and last spot that rookie season to retain his card for 2009 and then in October that year he won the first of four PGA Tour victories, and has retained his ‘card’ ever since, and having banked PGA Tour prize-money of $US 17.7m
