If you thought getting your hands on a ticket for the Ryder Cup in Rome was tricky, then try getting a seat inside the Glencruitten clubhouse when local hero Robert MacIntyre strides out for Team Europe at the Marco Simone course.
“It seats about 80 in the lounge but we’re probably expecting about 200,” said the club secretary, John Tannahill, as he envisaged the kind of jam-packed, boisterous fervor you used to get when the Colosseum was going like a fair back in the day. The good folks of Oban may not be decked out in togas and tunics, but you get the idea.
Glencruitten sits along the western coast of Scotland, about 100 miles northwest of Glasgow. MacIntyre grew up in the nearby city of Oban and has played at the club since he was young.
Bob’s Italian Job has gripped the town.
“The place is buzzing,” added Tannahill. “When you drive out along the esplanade, there are big banners with ‘good luck, Bob,’ It’s great.”
MacIntyre’s golfing endeavors and accomplishments have certainly put Glencruitten on the map. “It’s amazing to think of its profile now and there has certainly been an upturn in American visitors coming off the cruise ships,” noted Tannahill. “Maybe it’s the Bob effect?”
The idea of Elmer and Beatrice from Wyoming enjoying a bucket list 18 holes having been intrigued by Jim Nantz’s attempt to utter “Glencruitten” during the Masters coverage is a delightful notion.
A homely, down-to-earth club, the kind that Scotland does so well, Glencruitten hasn’t changed. MacIntyre, despite his fame and fortune, hasn’t either.
“Everybody knows him and his family are steeped in the club,” said Tannahill, who became a member in 1980, a couple of years before MacIntyre’s dad, Dougie, started as an assistant greenkeeper. “I used to go on golf holidays with his grandfather too. There is a group of older members here who come and have coffee and a bacon roll and go out for five or six holes. They’re up at the club for a blether really. Bob, wherever he has been in the golf world, will come in and the first place he goes to is them. He loves that.
“We’re a small club, our fees are low and it can be a struggle at times, to be honest. Like a lot of clubs, we’ve had a drop-off in juniors but it’s coming back. Bob has helped on that front. You couldn’t ask for a more inspiring figure. We have the two shinty teams in Oban, the football and the rugby. All that takes place on a Saturday and that doesn’t help the golf club. We have 350 members paying £360 a year. It doesn’t generate vast sums. But we have a great crowd of members. That’s the important thing.”
MacIntyre’s rise into the shimmering pantheon of a Ryder Cup player is another wonderful chapter in a fascinating sporting tale. Rather like the 3-wood approach for the ages to the last green of July’s Scottish Open, which took him to the cusp of glory only for pesky Rory McIlroy to conjure a world-class finale, his ascension remains a thing of wonder.
“I was watching him sizing up that shot and was thinking, ‘God, what’s he going to do here?’” reflected Tannahill of a shot and a result that effectively sealed his Ryder Cup berth. “But in many ways, that illustrated his single-mindedness and his ability to do exactly what he wanted to do in the moment. He’s not scared to make big decisions and he gets them right most of the time.
“I don’t think anyone here would’ve envisaged him at the Ryder Cup, though. Yes, it was the dream but could it be a reality? To be one of six to actually qualify and not rely on a pick? Well, that’s unbelievable. His whole journey has been special. Every week, we’ll look and wonder what he’s going to do next. Lots of golfers have the talent but they don’t have that extra something that gets you to a different level.
“His family had a tremendous competitive background through the shinty and Bob has that spirit too. The Ryder Cup will be right up his street. He thrives in the team environment. I’d say the European team room will be a bit more tranquil than the shinty team bus.”
Whatever happens in Rome next weekend, Tannahill and the Glencruitten members will have a rare old time.
“The bar is well stocked,” chuckled the 70-year-old of the various kegs, optics and bottles that will probably pour out the same volume of liquid that is in the Firth of Lorn. “I fancy Europe, I think they’ll do it,” he said. “And we’ll just wait on Bob holing the winning putt.”
It could be edge-of-the-seat stuff. If you can get a seat, that is …
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