I watched Bob MacIntyre's 'near perfect round of golf' in 154th Open

The Oban man hadn’t clapped eyes on the Southport course before playing a few holes on Monday and he found himself facing the fastest-running test in this event since Carnoustie in 2018.

“I still don't have a game plan for it,” MacIntyre admitted in a chat with a small group of reporters on Tuesday morning ahead of his seventh appearance in the Claret Jug event. “So I need to go and work it out again.”

He said that his gameplan was likely to be a mix of drivers and irons off the tees and it was a masterclass in course management as he opened with an eye-catching three-under-par 67.

“It felt like it was almost a perfect round of golf,” declared the 29-year-old afterwards and that, in truth, summed it up. “I enjoy it when I've got a fight. I'm not just fighting the golf course, I'm fighting myself, I'm fighting with Mike [Burrow, his caddie]. Yeah, it's a real grind. It's one of the hardest links courses I've ever played just for the sheer fact of the positions of the pot bunkers on certain holes with the length of the hole.”

In short, It was well worth a very early rise for not only MacIntyre but also lots of people out watching him, including mum and dad Carol and Dougie and sister Nicola, who is five months pregnant.

With three top-ten finishes under his belt in this event, MacIntyre was in the top ten of every bookmakers’ list before heading out for his 7.19am tee time on a glorious morning on the Lancashire coast with American Rickie Fowler and Englishman Alex Fitzpatrick.

As he was waiting to get underway, a drone appeared above the first tee. MacIntyre has history with drones, having vented as one flew over his head during his RBC Canadian Open win in 2024, and it wasn’t what he wanted to see.

“Aye, I could hear it coming in, and I'm like, please, just keep flipping over the top of me, and it just sat above me,” he said, smiling, as he recapped this episode. “Then they announced me on the tee, and I was like, I'm not hitting until that drone is out of the way. I don't know who spoke to it, but someone did!”

In his aforementioned chinwag with Scottish golf reporters, MacIntyre spoke about how he’d neglected his putting a bit recently and was left regretting that as a poor day on the greens in the final round cost him a chance to land a second Genesis Scottish Open win at The Renaissance Club last Sunday.

It was a perfect early boost, therefore, when he rolled in a 45-footer with a fair bit of break on it for a birdie at the par-4 first before the first example of his excellent course strategy led to another huge boost of confidence at the second.

Due to being “scared of the bunkers”, he took a 5-iron off the tee and was left a long way back for his second, but, boy, did it pay off. A majestic iron shot left him with a tap-in birdie while Fitzpatrick, who was up near the green with his drive, walked off with a bogey.

The tone had been set for MacIntyre’s day and, though he left a couple of putts hanging on the edge of the hole and took a sloppy bogey - his sole dropped shot - from the middle of the fairway at the eighth, it was a very polished performance indeed.

“Yeah, it was,” he replied to being asked if he felt it was one of his most-impressive rounds in the Claret Jug joust. “It was a test of kind of discipline and almost acceptance when I probably took the shot, a club off the tee, which then left a fairly long shot in on some of them, but my job was to get it on the fairway, stay out of these pot bunkers.

“I think I chased one a little bit too close on 16, which got level with the bunkers, but, other than that, I feel I was very, very cautious off the tee. But the way I've been playing, approach play has been really good. It was kind of the priority, get it on the short stuff and stay out of these pot bunkers.”

Other highlights included a 39-foot birdie putt being converted at the par-3 12th. His up and down from a bunker, which he was unlucky to find at the par-5 14th, for another birdie was probably going to be his shot of the day until his soft hands conjured up something magical to save par from close to the grandstand at the 18th. “A great scramble,” he said of that.

Before that, he’d also made a great par at the new par-3 15th, where his tee shot missed the green on the left. For this one, he went with a rescue club to roll it up a bank and get it close enough to avoid any spillage and it was a shot that brought a smile to dad Dougie’s face.

“Links golf is the ultimate test of golf,” said MacIntyre, who kickstarted his rise up the world rankings when finishing runner-up to Swede Marcus Kinhult in the 2019 British Masters hosted next door at Hillside by Tommy Fleetwood.

“You can use every club in the bag pretty much for every shot other than the ball in the bunker and the thick rough. If you're on the short stuff, you can use any club. I could have used my lob wedge, or I could have used my putter. I opted for the rescue because I've been practising hard with that.”

It was put to MacIntyre that some of his approaches had been a bit further left than he’d probably have been aiming. “Yeah, it's just the ball slightly too far back and aiming a little bit square,” he said. “I'm not worried about it. I might hit a few balls after. I probably won't. And I'll come back tomorrow and hopefully it's not there!”

Before heading off to spend some time with partner Shannon and baby son Findlay, MacIntyre talked about how much he’d enjoyed his morning playing in front of educated British golf fans rather than some of the morons who attend PGA Tour events.

“The Open crowd is the best every time,” he said, smiling. “One of the best things was I didn't hear one shout off the tee box of ‘get in the hole’ or all the daft shouts that you get (in the US). It was very much just golf and people enjoying golf.”

And, boy, did they enjoy this round by the Scottish No 1.