Robert MacIntyre couldn’t quite beat the cut at the BMW PGA Championship but Ryder Cup vice captain Graeme McDowell thinks he’s a certainty for future European teams.
The Scot made a long up and down for par at the 18th to complete a bogey-free three-under 69, but his total of one-under was just looking like a shot short of the cut mark.
McDowell, a lieutenant for captain Padraig Harrington at Whistling Straits, was this week detailed to play with MacIntyre and although it seems unlikely the Scot will now make this team, the former US Open champion thinks he’ll be there in time.
‘It’s only a matter of time until he plays in a Ryder Cup’
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“He showed me that it’s only a matter of time until he plays in a Ryder Cup,” said McDowell.
“Robert makes a lot of birdies. You know, he makes mistakes, like we all did when we were young. It is very hard to have the full polished, finished article, but he is very close.”
McDowell said that he’d joked with MacIntyre about being his top man if he gets to be skipper himself in the not too distant future.
“We were talking about Ryder Cup captains and I said that there is a Ryder Cup in Ireland in 2027 (at Adare Manor) that I had my beady eye on,” he said. “I said to him, ‘hopefully I’ll be giving you a slap on the back and sending you on Sunday leading the team’.
“It won’t be his first Ryder Cup in 2027. I think he’s a quality player. I love him, I think he’s got a great attitude, he’s super-talented.
“He’s just young and aggressive and that equals birdies and mistakes.”
‘He has a lot of belief in himself’
Even if it’s not to be for Whistling Straits, he’ll get there eventually, McDowell stressed.
“For sure and he knows that,” added the hero of Celtic Manor in 2010 and Gleneagles in 2014. “I think he has a lot of belief in himself. He’s a very grounded individual.
“He’s a great lad and he impresses me.”
MacIntyre was hugely frustrated to be going home early from a venue he feels is right up his track.
“I thought I played really well again, bogey free, and I don’t know how to get off this train I’m on right now,” he said. “I hit one bad shot, I felt. I’m just getting battered right now and the frustration’s starting to build.
‘It could have been an easy six, seven under’
“That could have been an easy six, seven under par. If I hole those medium range putts, people are saying, that’s a decent score, you deserve that.
“It’s a golf course that suits me absolutely perfectly and it’s starting to drive me mental now. I’m going to go away from here and think about what to do.
“I feel I’m in the right place physically and mentally but it’s starting to get to me. You just need a little spark to get you going. I’ve just not got any sparks this last four or five weeks.”