MacIntyre setting sights high after successful season

Robert MacIntyre has said he is setting high goals next year but believes he can attain them and continue his rise in world golf.

The Scot enjoyed a successful 2021, making the cut in each of the majors, securing a top ten finish in the Race to Dubai and finishing fourth in last weekend’s Dubai World Championship.

Having improved year on year since turning professional in 2017, the Oban golfer continues to look upwards and onwards and says there’s more to come.

He told STV: “I’m going to set goals that are higher than I’ve ever set but it’s ones that I feel I can knock out of the park no problem.”

MacIntyre takes his confidence from a feeling that although he has shown himself capable of competitng at the very top this year, he still feels he hasn’t shown his absolute best.

“Overall, to manage to jump into the top ten in the Race to Dubai, I mean it’s my best season yet,” he said.

“I can’t complain but for me, I feel like I’ve not played my best golf this year.

“I feel like I’ve controlled the golf ball as well as I’ve ever done but I’ve not been as sharp.

“It gives me so much belief that the golf last week was not my best golf but I was never really out of control.”

The 25-year-old’s enjoyment of the game has been evident as he has settled into life on the big stage and, at a time when the stresses and pressures of top-level sport have been intense and the effects more evident than ever before, MacIntyre said his happiness and positive outlook were an asset to him.

“For me, that’s the best club in my bag,” he said. “If I’m not enjoying it or I’m getting angry easily then I’m as well packing up and going home because I ain’t going to be competing on the Sunday.”

The Race to Dubai placing is the first for a Scot since Paul Lawrie in 2012 and gives the added bonus of a place in the US Open next year, completing the full set for 2022 and giving MacIntyre the chance to meet his high targets and look forward to the next season with confidence and excitement.