'Life has been difficult but it's all good now' - Bob MacIntyre opens up on new priorities

“Yeah, life’s changed,” said the Oban man, smiling. “Different priorities. I’ve got a little one at home now that is everything to me. Yeah, it’s taken a bit of adjusting.”

MacIntyre had planned to have partner Shannon and their wee boy, Findlay, out with him at The Masters in April before that plan was scrapped. It’s all been about everything being right for that to happen and they’re out here in the States with him during a current five-week stint, which concludes on Sunday after the Travelers Championship in Connecticut.

“I’ve actually got them out for the first time,” he said at the end of the 126th US Open at Shinnecock Hills on Sunday. “This is the first major they’ve come to since he was born in January. He had been struggling a bit until five or six weeks ago.

“Yeah, life has been difficult, but it’s all good now. They are here. I’ve enjoyed them being gere and, thankfully, I made a cut. To be honest, it’s more that I can speak to them whenever I finish golf. It’s when they are at home. It’s a first world problem, isn’t it? They’re at home and you can’t speak to them all day and, when you finish, they are in bed due to the time difference.

“Yeah, it is difficult, but it’s been far better since they came out here travelling with me. They’ve been here since Dallas and we’ve got one more week to survive then we are going home!”

Though not the week the 2025 runner up was looking for on Long Island, the statistic backed up MacIntre believing that he played better than his finish behind new double champion Wyndham Clark suggested.

He was second for the week on the greens with 1.69 putts per green, bettered only by Belgian Adrien Dumont de Chassart with 1.62 while Clark was 1.81. MacIntyre, meanwhile, was T18 for strokes gained with 1.39, with the damage, so to speak, being done by a three-hole run that cost him four shots towards the end of the second round.

“Just a disappointing week,” he declared. “Playing for nothing there today (in the final round). The game’s good - the game is good! Yeah, I just need to calm down and put it together at some point. I’ve got the Genesis Scottish Open and the Open Championship coming up.

“There’s worse times to put the golf game together than those two weeks. Yeah, I can’t wait (to get back on home soil). I don’t know when I am going to peg it back up after The Open, but it could be a wee while.”

‘I want ten Scots in these majors’

MacIntyre, down to 19th in the world after slipping two spots, has been the sole Scots in all three majors so far this year and is hoping he has some company for the final one when The 154th Open is staged at Royal Birkdale in a few weeks’ time.

“Yeah, it would be great,” he said, with 1999 champion Paul Lawrie having indicated earlier in the year that he intended to be in the field for the first time since 2017. “I want ten Scots to be in these majors.

“It’s hard to get into all the majors playing on the DP World Tour. I get why people wouldn’t do the qualifying for this one. If you are playing in Europe and qualify for this, it wipes out not just one week but three weeks if you take in the week before and the week after with the travel and stuff.”

Speaking as the scramble for spots was about to get underway in both Regional and Final Qualifying, MacIntyre added with a smile: “The Open is the best chance for us to get loads there and I think we will. I think there will be a fair few Scots at The Open.”