TROON, Scotland — The drive from The Renaissance Club, site of last week’s Genesis Scottish Open, in North Berwick to Royal Troon is slightly more than two hours depending on the traffic near Glasgow. But Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre, who won in his homeland on Sunday with a dramatic birdie on the final hole, won’t be making the trip on Monday. Probably not Tuesday either.
MacIntyre said as much in his winner’s press conference and he stuck to his words, canceling his Monday press conference ahead of the 152nd Open, which was scheduled for 3 p.m. BST (10 a.m. EST). He won’t meet with the media now until Wednesday. He’ll be too busy celebrating winning his personal major.
“How I come down from this, I don’t think I will,” he said on Sunday. “I think I will just try and ride the wave, and next week, yeah, it’s Open Championship. That means, again, a lot to me. But you’ve got to celebrate the good times because it doesn’t happen a lot and this is one I said I wanted. This, I’m going to celebrate hard and I’ll pitch up when I tee the ball on Thursday, whatever time I tee off, I’ll try to win the championship. There might be some alcohol still in the system but I will try my best.”
MacIntyre, who won for the second time this season as a rookie on the PGA Tour, might be fighting a bit of a hangover from the sound of it.
“Look, I’m going to celebrate this win with my friends and family, everyone that’s there. I don’t think they are going to be home for a bit tonight,” he said on Sunday. “We’ll celebrate this one now.”