Bob MacIntyre missing 'that big family feel' of DP World Tour in 'lonely' US

Scot opens up on how he’s found it difficult on PGA Tour due to finding it ‘unfamiliar’

Bob MacIntyre is missing “that big family feel” of the DP World Tour as he bids to make headway on the PGA Tour, admitting his new working environment as one of the ten card winners through last season’s Race to Dubai is a “lonely place”.

Speaking on a video call for the Genesis Scottish Open in July after last year’s runner up was added to a field that will be spearheaded by defending champion Rory McIlroy, it was evident that the 27-year-old has lost a bit of his natural spark since swapping Scotland for the States.

Six missed cuts in 12 starts this year on the US circuit is part of the reason why a bit of his cheek and charm is perhaps missing at the moment and he’s determined to start moving up the gears again, with next week’s PGA Championship at Valhalla a perfect opportunity to put a spring back in his step.

Bob MacIntyre celebrates after putting in for a birdie on the 18th green during the last round of the 2023 Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club. Picture: Octavio Passos/Getty Images.

A recent visit home to Oban has left him “feeling a far happier man” since returning to the US, but, like many other Europeans before him, MacIntyre’s biggest challenge at the moment is adapting to an environment that is vastly different to what he was used to on the Challenge Tour after he first turned professional then the DP World Tour.

“Yeah, it's been wild, to be honest,” said the Scot, speaking from South Carolina, where he is teeing up in this week’s Myrtle Beach Classic, in reply to being asked about his opening four months as a PGA Tour card holder, having tied for sixth in the Mexico Open in February under his own steam before joining forces with Belgian Thomas Detry in the recent Zurich Classic of New Orleans. “It's completely different.

“When you're on the DP World Tour, it's very friendly. Everyone is together. We're all travelling the world. If we're struggling with certain things, we speak to folk around us. Everything is very familiar. You come out here to the PGA Tour, and it's also so unfamiliar. There's less chatting. There's less dinners. There's just less of that big family feel that you get on the DP World Tour.”

So what’s the wildest thing he’s come across so far? “It's just basic stuff, to be honest, that you take for granted back home in Europe,” he added. “It's just simple things. Sitting in player dining, you do it in Europe and you've got all the Scottish boys, you've got all the British boys. A lot of the European guys, if you're sitting on your own, they will come and join you. Out here, because you don't know many folk. You don't know them in that same kind of depth, they don't come to sit with you. It does become a lonely place at the golf side of it.”

His girlfriend, Shannon Hartley, is out in the States with him while Iain Stoddart, his manager, has been back and forth across the Atlantic a fair bit over the past few months, as has Simon Shanks, his coach. “There's always kind of someone bumping around the house,” he said. “It is different because I can't just jump home and see the family and get that kind of vibe, or being at home, being chilled out.”

Getting that opportunity recently after being in the US since January was just what the doctor ordered. “It's getting to spend time with people that treat you as Bob, the human, and not Bob the golfer,” he said of that visit back to Oban. “Out here when you're travelling, I mean, we've not got many friends outside of the golf circle. You can't get away from it. So the people, they try and speak to you all the time about, or the majority of the time about Bob the golfer. But, when I go back home to Oban, I talk to my mates, the boys where I play shinty, the boys that I just hang around with. They treat me as Bob as just a pal that they have grown up with. There's nothing fancy. It's okay, they will ask me about the golf, how the golf is going. But very little golf chat gets chatted. It's all about just life and how's things and then just if you've done something well, a few of them will just pull me back down to earth.

“I think that's the culture difference in America to Scotland. We are very, very, very, very good at pulling each other down, whereas out here, it's very much prop them up, try to push them up in the limelight. It's just a different culture.”

MacIntyre was asked if he felt DP World Tour players lived fuller lives than Americans on the PGA Tour. “Yeah, I wouldn't say fuller lives because everyone's life's different,” he replied to that one. “They live the life that they want to live in America. They do it differently from back home and for me I'm completely different to 95 percent or probably 99 percent of European Tour guys. When I'm playing in Europe and I finish, if I miss a cut, I jump on a plane to try and get home for a Saturday afternoon to go play a game of shinty. I'm probably off the scales for kind of normality. But it's what makes me tick, and the guys in America, different things make them tick. They just do it differently from me.”

He admitted that being asked what had been the best thing he’d learned so far this year was a “good question” and paused briefly before offering his answer. “I haven't really worked that one out, to be honest,” he said. “Look, it's completely different. It's a great place to play golf. It's obviously where the best players in the world are. It's where you can make more money.

“But, for me, it's all about work life balance. I've not quite worked that out yet over here. I went home for three weeks there recently and felt like I came out a far happier man because it does get on top of you. Yeah, you're playing against the best in the world out here. It's a different environment for me, but I'm just trying to enjoy it as much as I can and learn as much as I can week-in and week-out.”

MacIntyre, who was denied by a birdie-birdie finish from McIlroy at The Renaissance Club last summer, is relishing his return to the East Lothian venue for the $9 million Rolex Series event on 10-14 July, when the field will also include 2022 winner Xander Schauffele after he was confirmed along with MacIntyre and Tom Kim as the lastest additions to the line up.

“Yeah, obviously last year was almost a dream come true,” admitted MacIntyre, who produced a wonder shot to set up a last-hole birdie and a closing six-under-par 64 only to be denied by McIlroy’s stunning 3-3 finish in a howling gale. “Obviously fell just shy. But, for me, the Scottish Open is the biggest event outside of the major championships.

"For any Scottish guy, it's the one they want to win. It doesn't change for me, whether it's a high prize fund, low prize fund, what tour. I'll be there to play it. For me, it's just to play good golf. It's not been near every week out here, but there's been glimpse of it.”