Robert MacIntyre held his nerve to claim a maiden PGA TOUR victory at the RBC Canadian Open this weekend, continuing his remarkable rise up the golfing ranks.
The Scotsman led by four strokes going into the final round at Hamilton Golf & Country Club, but had to hold off a strong chasing pack before eventually claiming an emotional one stroke victory.
The 27-year-old’s triumph was made all the more special with his father, Dougie, on the bag after he accepted the call to put his role as greenkeeper at Glencruitten Golf Club to one side for the week.
It was back in 2018 when MacIntyre, teeing it up on the Challenge Tour, began to make his mark in the world of golf.
Targeting promotion to the DP World Tour in his first full season, he recorded five top ten finishes, narrowly missing out on a maiden victory on two occasions, both in a playoff.
MacIntyre would head to the season-ending Ras Al Khaimah Challenge Tour Grand Final holding onto the 15th and final card, needing a strong finish to make sure of promotion.
A sixth-place finish – including this long putt on the final day – made sure of graduation to the DP World Tour, a place where he would find consistency over the following five seasons.
In his debut season on golf’s Global Tour, MacIntyre racked up seven top ten finishes, before securing a maiden victory at the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Showdown the following season.
The Scot would claim a second title two years later in the DS Automobiles Italian Open, edging out Englishman Matthew Fitzpatrick in a playoff.
Better things were to come in 2023. Following an impressive run of form, MacIntyre qualified via the European Points List for the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, where he impressed, going unbeaten to take 2.5 points from his three outings.
The Scotsman concluded the year by becoming one of ten players to benefit from a formalised pathway onto the PGA TOUR thanks to his performances on the DP World Tour's season-long Race to Dubai.
MacIntyre finished seventh of the top ten players who were not already exempt on the PGA TOUR to earn his card and now, at the age of 27 years, 9 months and 30 days, can call himself a winner on both of golf's biggest tours.
In the immediate aftermath of his triumph, MacIntyre said: "Goosebumps. It's incredible. It's a dream of mine to play golf for a living. It was a dream of mine to win on the PGA TOUR, when I got my PGA TOUR card, and I just can't believe I've done it with my dad on the bag.
"This guy's taught me the way I play golf. I never make it easy, and he said that to me, when I was [on] 16 or 17.
"And that's the way I play golf, I play it with the heart on the sleeve, and we got a hell of a fight in the two of us and I just can't believe that I've won on the PGA TOUR, to be honest."
The win sees MacIntyre climb to a career-high 39th on the Official World Golf Ranking and qualify for the U.S. Open later this month.
