Robert MacIntyre, for some time the darling of Scottish golf without quite having the trophy-haul to back up the many lofty assessments, won Sunday’s DS Automobiles Italian Open 2022 at Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome in exceptional style to kickstart his quest to make a Ryder Cup debut at the same venue next year.
The 26-year-old from Oban carded a brilliant final round of 64, the low score of the day by two, to set a clubhouse target of 14-under 270, which only 54-hole leader Matt Fitzpatrick could match.
The Scotsman, who had ticked 10 birdies in his regulation round on Sunday, added an 11th par breaker at the first extra hole which the Englishman failed to match. It was a second DP World Tour title for MacIntyre, but the title was a significant step up in class from his first win at the 2020 Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Showdown.
Popular, undoubtedly talented, and the winner of the Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year in 2019, MacIntyre nonetheless left some observers in Scotland to question his widespread media coverage at home and elsewhere.
The naysayers wondered why only one of his six previous top-three finishes had reaped a win while those who believed in him pointed to the promise of a pair of Open Championship top-10 finishes and two top 25s at Augusta National (which, with the exception of Colin Montgomerie, is the best golf played by a Scotsman in 21st-century majors).
Such debates will rumble on, but there can be no question that MacIntyre can consider this a significant boost to his career. He not only bounced back from consecutive bogeys midway through the back nine of his Sunday lap, he also took down the reigning U.S. Open champion Fitzpatrick and the FedEx Cup winner Rory McIlroy (albeit the Northern Irishman shot himself in the foot by opening the final round with a double bogey at the first).
MacIntyre conceded that he started the week doubting that the course was a fit for his game. “But we worked on a few things, and I felt so in control of my golf ball,” he said.
“I was down and out about two or three months ago. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know where to go. But we spoke to the right people, and there’s so much hard work gone into this.”
Of next year’s Ryder Cup, he said: “It’s my main goal, my only goal, for the next year. This means everything.”
Matt Cooper