Earlier this year the world’s top-ranked Scotsman, top-ranked lefty and best-golfer-who-moonlights-as-a-shinty-player joined me on the practice tee to run through his warmup routine. He revealed a thing or two about how he sees the world in the process.
Here’s what I learned from Robert MacIntyre on the latest episode of Warming Up.
Watch below, or read on . . . or better yet, do both!
1. The gym isn’t his enemy anymore
“When I first came out I was against it all,” MacIntyre says as he begins his session. “I was like, I’m not doing that. I’m young enough. But I had a few injuries, lower back, like most golfers, and I think that came from, one, not being strong enough to withstand the speed and the travel, and two, when I’m getting on the range I can just peg it up with the driver, I sometimes do that when I’m back home in the simulator, no warmup — and then that’s when I do get myself injured.”
MacIntyre says he and his team noticed that his scoring average was going up in morning rounds and figured that was due in part to his body struggling to wake up. They’ve reversed that with a more diligent pre-round routine.
“Warming up’s been important,” he adds somewhat reluctantly.
I think that’s a decent tagline for the show.
2. He has a “wedge chart”
MacIntyre starts with his 60-degree and varies his specific wedge warmup but with the same goal — to dial in specific wedge feels.
“I’ve got a chart of how far I hit my wedges. So, like, a 9 o’clock feel, which normally goes 99 yards, give or take,” he says.
What does a 9 o’clock feel mean? MacIntyre takes his lead arm back until it’s parallel with the ground — like the hand hitting nine on a clock — “and then it’s full speed ahead.”
3. He likes using the simulator to “reset”
MacIntyre’s home base is Scotland — more on that in a minute — but that doesn’t mean he’s grinding on the range in all manner of windy linksland conditions. Instead, he prefers the calm of the simulator when he’s home.
“My technique gets off with like, after [a] week playing in the wind,” MacIntyre says. “I know the tendencies, I’m going to get ahead of it, I’m gonna trap it, so I feel like the simulator is great for resetting, no wind no interference, flat surface and I can just work on technique.”
4. Still, flighting his wedges low is second nature
You can take Bob out of Scottish wind but you can’t take the Scottish wind out of Bob, or something like that.
“I’ve grown up in the wind, so it’s fairly easy,” MacIntyre says of keeping his wedges low in the wind. “Open up [my stance] a little bit. Your body will open up naturally. The ball goes back [in my stance] and then I just swing it, just drive through it.
“Something I’ve not got a problem doing is hitting it low.”
What’s interesting is that MacIntyre says those two things are related; the more time he spends playing in the wind the more he gets leaning forward and the further back the ball goes in his stance — hence the need for a reset.
5. He needs a different routine than Tiger Woods
When Tiger Woods turned pro he moved to Isleworth, an Orlando-area club, and the rest was history. As for MacIntyre?
“I remember the first year out here on the PGA Tour, I was at this place in Orlando, practicing at Isleworth, but I was almost overdoing it. I was like, I’m going to go and practice, I’m going to go and practice, and then it was like, my game got worse. And I think some of it was motivation, like, why am I practicing? [In the offseason] it’s hard to be motivated because after a Ryder Cup and the Race to Dubai’s finished, you’re trying to slow down.”
This has been a big part of MacIntyre’s story the last few years: finding what energizes him, what drains him, what helps him tick best.
“I find when I’m off at home, I like to spend time with family and friends and not touch the clubs too much unless Mike [his caddie] messages me and says, right, match at the simulator, then I’ll join up and play,” he says.
As for Woods’ routine?
“I’m not built the same as Tiger,” he says. “But look, everyone does it differently. I mean, look at Alex Noren. If I went and spent a day with Alex, my hands would be in bits the next day … for me, the biggest change in the last two years has been the mental side, and the happier I am off the golf course, I can bring that onto the golf course. So, yeah. Pretty simple.”
6. His shot shape? Depends on the club
What’s MacIntyre’s preferred shot shape? It changes throughout the bag.
“I’m more draw-biased with the shorter clubs,” he says, holding his 9-iron. “And then more fade-biased with the longer irons.”
As for his woods?
“I’m a more neutral guy with the driver. I don’t like to shape the driver, like my stock shot would be very neutral to then allow me to maneuver it.”
7. On the range he’s “finding zero”
Although MacIntyre has his preferred shot shapes (see above), during his pre-round range sessions he’s generally trying to hit it pretty straight.
“For me it’s all about finding zero, finding neutral on the range, and then when I go out and play I just go and play and don’t think about anything,” MacIntyre says. “But on the range I think about a little more, I try to get the club in a good spot … when I warm up I try and hit everything dead straight so that when I go on the golf course I know, well, if that’s straight [pointing to ball position], if I want to draw it, the ball goes back [in my stance], if I want to fade it, the ball goes up.
“I try and keep it as simple as I can.”
8. When he’s curving the ball, he’s thinking about one thing…
…where it’s going to finish.
“I’m not a big technique guy … I’ve played golf long enough now, I know that to fade it the club’s got to go this way,” MacIntyre says, making an outside-to-in, left-to-right motion. “I don’t worry about how much it’s fading. Mike will always say where he wants me to finish it, he doesn’t ever tell me where to start it.
“Because I don’t even know where this thing’s going to start. As long as I put the shape on it and hit the distance.”
9. He looks at three numbers on a launch monitor
“Path, face angle, face-to-path. Those are my checkpoints,” MacIntyre says.
“Path” measures the direction the clubhead is traveling relative to the target line.
“Face angle” measures the direction the face is pointing at impact, also relative to the target line.
And face-to-path measures the relationship between the above two numbers, which will tell you about curvature, sidespin, ball flight.
So is MacIntyre more artist or scientist?
“I would say I’m more of an artist, but I don’t back away from the science side of it,” he says. “I do like to make sure everything’s in line, make sure the clubs are right, make sure…there’s so much that goes into it now that it’s not just pitch up, play golf anymore.”
10. “Life goes on”
It came out a few years back that MacIntyre was continuing to play other sports, particular shinty, which he describes as “field hockey without rules.” This implied that I would understand field hockey and its rules, which I do not, but I did pick up on the general sense of lawlessness involved. So why keep playing other sports when his livelihood depends on his physical well-being?
“Life goes on,” he says with a grin. “Like, this is my job. Playing other sports is my hobby.
“I remember getting asked in an interview at the Dunhill a few years ago, when it first came out, when people realized, ‘he’s still playing shinty, what’s he doing? Bit crazy.’
“But I remember the reporter, I know the exact guy, I remember his face, who said, ‘Why are you still playing shinty? And I didn’t even reply, I asked him a question, I go, ‘Well, let me ask you the question, what do you do in your spare time? You work as a reporter, what do you do Saturday, Sunday if you’re not reporting?’
“He goes, ‘I play golf.’ I was like, ‘Exactly. Well, my job’s playing golf, so if I’m having two weeks off, what do I do in my spare time? Gotta do something.’
“At that point, I wasn’t into the gym. I wasn’t into doing things. So I was, like, ‘Well, I play shinty in my spare time, or go and do other sports, whether it’s squash, tennis, indoor football. Live my life. I don’t worry too much about the consequences. We’ll worry about that once we have to.”
That’s the Tao of MacIntyre: Live my life. Don’t worry about the consequences. Worry about that once we have to.
Not a bad way to go about it.