If you thought getting your hands on a ticket for the Ryder Cup in Rome was tricky, then try getting a seat inside the Glencruitten clubhouse when local hero Robert MacIntyre strides out for Team Europe at the Marco Simone course.
“It seats about 80 in the lounge but we’re probably expecting about 200,” said the club secretary, John Tannahill, as he envisaged the kind of jam-packed, boisterous fervor you used to get when the Colosseum was going like a fair back in the day. The good folks of Oban may not be decked out in togas and tunics, but you get the idea.
Glencruitten sits along the western coast of Scotland, about 100 miles northwest of Glasgow. MacIntyre grew up in the nearby city of Oban and has played at the club since he was young.
Bob’s Italian Job has gripped the town.
“The place is buzzing,” added Tannahill. “When you drive out along the esplanade, there are big banners with ‘good luck, Bob,’ It’s great.”
MacIntyre’s golfing endeavors and accomplishments have certainly put Glencruitten on the map. “It’s amazing to think of its profile now and there has certainly been an upturn in American visitors coming off the cruise ships,” noted Tannahill. “Maybe it’s the Bob effect?”
The idea of Elmer and Beatrice from Wyoming enjoying a bucket list 18 holes having been intrigued by Jim Nantz’s attempt to utter “Glencruitten” during the Masters coverage is a delightful notion.
The second hole at Glencruitten Golf Club. (Photo courtesy Glencruitten Golf Club)
A homely, down-to-earth club, the kind that Scotland does so well, Glencruitten hasn’t changed. MacIntyre, despite his fame and fortune, hasn’t either.
“Everybody knows him and his family are steeped in the club,” said Tannahill, who became a member in 1980, a couple of years before MacIntyre’s dad, Dougie, started as an assistant greenkeeper. “I used to go on golf holidays with his grandfather too. There is a group of older members here who come and have coffee and a bacon roll and go out for five or six holes. They’re up at the club for a blether really. Bob, wherever he has been in the golf world, will come in and the first place he goes to is them. He loves that.
“We’re a small club, our fees are low and it can be a struggle at times, to be honest. Like a lot of clubs, we’ve had a drop-off in juniors but it’s coming back. Bob has helped on that front. You couldn’t ask for a more inspiring figure. We have the two shinty teams in…
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