Last weekend in the US, professional golf became a family affair. A winning issue judging by Robert MacIntyre and Yuka Saso. The Scotsman won his first race on the PGA Tour with his father Dougie as his caddie. The second one won it again US Women’s Open as a Japanese, she had conquered the previous one as a Filipina (in both cases she was the first from her country to triumph).
Yuka Saso, first for mom and now for dad
Let’s start with the latter. Yuka Saso is 22 years old, with a Filipino mother and a Japanese father. In 2021, she won the US Women’s Open with a Manila passport. A few months later she gave up her dual passport and decided to play “only” for Japan. For that flag you played and won yesterday in Lancaster. Again for the Land of the Rising Sun he will be at the 2024 Olympics in Paris after having played (in Tokyo) for the 2021 Olympics for the Philippines. “It’s as if I had paid homage first to my mother and now to my father” the proette said emotionally at the end of the fourth round.
Ironically: between the two Majors Saso had never won a race again. A difficult situation to handle, a constant questioning. “I hadn’t won in two and a half or three years. Surely – he explained – I had a little doubt whether I could win again. I believe that everything I experienced helped me a lot. I proved something to myself. Winning makes you look back. To the family, your team and the sponsors who have stood by me through the ups and downs.”
Yuka Saso won a first-place prize of $2.4 million (the prize pool was 12, the largest in women’s golf). At 22 years and 347 days, she is the youngest player to have already won two US Women’s Opens.
In the standings Saso preceded her compatriot Hinako Shibuno, ahead of the Americans Ally Ewing and Andrea Lee.
MacIntyre jr calls MacIntyre sr
On the male side, the story is even more curious. Robert MacIntyre, now a certainty of European golf and member of the Ryder Cup, has gone to seek consecration on the PGA Tour. Without results and after having changed three caddies in 18 months, on the eve of the RBC Canadian Open Mulligan played: hiring the first caddy of her career, her father Dougie. A phone call and Dougie says goodbye to his native Oban in Scotland and his job as a greenkeeper at the Glencruitten Golf Club. The destination is Ontario. The possible mission is to help his son win. Today that goal is achieved: Bobone (winner of the 2022 Italian Open) won his first PGA title, trailing Griffin by one shot and Perez by two. Thanks to this success, the Scot will be able to play on the US circuit until 2026 and rightfully enter the 2024 US Open. And to say that he had booked a place in the qualifications for the 2024 US Open for today (and with his father still as caddy).
Bob and Dougie hadn’t taken the field together since 2017 at the DP World Tour Qualifying Schools. He used to coach him but not just in golf: father and son share a passion for golf. shinty (“a cross between field hockey and organized violence” according to MacIntyre). Now the winning couple has been formed, even if it is an emergency.
MacIntyre: “I didn’t compete, we couldn’t afford it”
And Dougie did his job to the end, especially on Friday when his son was failing mentally after starting well. The father understood his son’s difficult moment and tried to stop it in its tracks. “What have you worked hard on these eight weeks?” he asked his son several times. The answer was the mind and the mind helped Bobone to escape from the negative spiral. “I tried to find the positive in every shot from then on,” explained MacIntyre jr, who finished that day at -4.
The MacIntyres are a large and certainly not wealthy family. Robert did it thanks to everyone’s collaboration. And now, at the highest point of his career and with his father close to him, he looks back. “Hitting a white ball on a golf course is not the most important thing in the world, I understood this growing up – he explained – As a junior I couldn’t compete because we couldn’t afford it. I think this made me fight and makes me fight again. Nothing is given to me. I mean, they gave me quite a bit. They gave me the opportunity, but never – never was I spoon fed. I have always fought for everything.”
