You could feel the bad weather closing in on Royal Portrush during Friday morning. The atmosphere around the links grew stickier, and sweatier, every minute, and soon enough everyone was peeling off the layers of waterproof clothing they would be hurrying to get back on when the big black clouds broke open midway through the afternoon. It finally happened roundabout the very moment Bob MacIntyre was walking off the 18th green to sign for his 66, five under for the round, and the championship, and three shots off the clubhouse lead.
MacIntyre is 28, but an old hand around these links. He knew he needed to make birdies while the sun was shining and picked up six of them altogether, with just the one bogey at the 16th where his tee shot caught on the hillside by the green.
He was playing with Bryson DeChambeau, who had a hell of a time himself. DeChambeau followed the 78 he made on the opening day with a 65, which meant he had put together his worst and best rounds at the Open on successive days. He was as perplexed by it as everyone else. “That’s links golf for you,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I played any differently. Today just kind of went more my way.”
DeChambeau’s got a scientific mind, he said earlier in the week that his ideal practice ground would be a 400m-long tunnel in which he can control the wind, and he clearly finds the inconsistencies of the links completely infuriating.
“When it gets as chaotic as this, with the wind going every which way, you have to be a golfer that pivots on demand,” he said. Which isn’t much good when you’re a man who likes to hit 400 balls in a single session on the range by way of practice for a major. He explained he had spent a day preparing for a left-to-right wind on 18, only to find, once he got there, that it was blowing the other way altogether. He did well to make the cut, and better to control his temper. “I was proud of the way I fought back and persevered through some emotionally difficult moments, and to hold myself together and not get pissed and slam clubs and throw things and all that like I wanted to.”
MacIntyre might just have told him to let himself go. He threw plenty of silent oaths himself, most of them after putts that stayed up.
They made an odd pair. DeChambeau, just over 6ft, square-shouldered, shaped like a linebacker, looks like he’s been carved out of marble. In between shots, his body seems to fall like it’s been positioned for him by a sculptor. MacIntyre, on the other hand, is built like the bloke working the till in the chippie. If you didn’t know already, you’d burn through a whole lot of guesses before you got to what he does for his living. He’s good at it though, especially out here on the links where he whistles the ball in, out and around the wind with that slouchy, left-handed swing of his.
MacIntyre grew up playing this sort of golf around Oban, just the other side of the North Channel. Royal Portrush is one of his favourite courses, he finished sixth on his major debut here back in 2019, and the kinship between the two countries means the locals here love him like one of their own. He and DeChambeau hadn’t much to do with each other till they were drawn together this week, but they seemed to enjoy each other’s company, maybe because they are such contrasting characters. MacIntyre plays by feel, DeChambeau by theory.
“We’re two completely different golfers,” MacIntyre said. He was out there playing with a 10-year-old three wood which he dug out of the back of a cupboard at home. “I actually thought that club broke in 2020 at Abu Dhabi,” he said. “But I was searching for a three wood and I went back into the cupboard and looked at the antiques.” Turns out it still works. DeChambeau, on the other hand, revealed after his round that he is currently working on a top-secret project to reinvent the golf ball. He said that his model “will be here, worst-case scenario, in September”.
“He’s obviously got his way of doing it,” said MacIntyre. “But to be honest, golf’s going closer to his approach now, with all the science and biomechanics, and everything. But yeah, I’ll just keep playing golf my way.”
Justin Rose made up the trio. These days he plays the sort of brisk, businesslike golf of a man who knows he’s on the clock and wants to make the most of the hours he has. He’s 44 now and, 12 years on from his victory in the US Open at Merion, has finished runner-up five times in the majors. But he is way back in this one, after his round was blighted by a triple-bogey at the 11th.
