They do like to make a fuss at golf events these days, don’t they? The sixth hole here at the Renaissance club, for instance, is not just called the sixth. That would be far too boring wouldn’t it? Instead, it’s now named the ‘Sixth Hole Stadium Experience’.
Robert MacIntyre certainly enjoyed, well, the experience. At the par-3, with a grandstand horseshoeing around the green, the Scot’s birdie putt of 20-feet was greeted with a jubilant roar from the crowd that could’ve whipped up a tidal surge in the Forth.
“I’d hit a reasonably decent tee-shot and the crowd was going wild and chanting me all the way up to the green,” said MacIntyre after keeping himself in contention on an eight-under aggregate.
“When I holed the putt, it was almost a relief for me, but also a goosebump moment when the crowd erupted. It's always good to have the support, and then doing half-decent. I’m trying to stay as even-keeled as I can but it’s hard at times.
“I said to my caddie walking up the seventh, ‘that's why I play golf’. That's why I put in the hard work for these moments.
"You almost feel like you're giving something back when you hole a nice putt and the crowd are going wild. It's what they're wanting and when you can do it in front of them, it's absolutely brilliant.”
MacIntyre, a winner on the PGA Tour in Canada this season and the runner-up in the Scottish Open 12 months ago, was bogey-free in a 65 as he found himself at the sharp end of affairs again.
“Obviously I want to be leading but I’m pretty close to where I want to be going into the weekend,” added the Oban lefty, who had one or two chances to make further inroads on the leaderboard but couldn’t take advantage.
With MacIntyre at the vanguard of the home assault, the Scottish battalion lost five members to the cut, but Connor Syme and Grant Forrest ploughed on into the closing 36-holes.
Syme hoisted himself onto a six-under total with a battling 66 and bolstered his hopes of nabbing one of three Open places that are up for grabs here.
A double-bogey on the seventh wiped out two earlier birdies, but Syme’s recovery was admirable and he reeled off four birdies in a row from the eighth to repair the damage.
Syme is getting married a couple of days after the final men’s major of the season. He wouldn’t mind saying ‘I do’ to an Open tee-time before striding up the aisle.
“That’s the plan anyway,” said Syme, who was fourth in last weekend’s BMW International Open in Germany and is heading in the right direction again on home soil in his latest tour outing.
Local man Forrest, meanwhile, experienced a topsy-turvy day but steadied the ship after a wild start and carded a 69 for a four-under tally.
The 31-year-old’s opening six holes were as colourful as a patchwork quilt and featured a bogey, a double-bogey, an eagle, a bogey and two birdies.
A stream of 11 pars followed before Forrest finished with a rousing flourish and launched a 5-iron into the tough 18th which hit the pin, led to a birdie and rubber-stamped his place in the closing 36-holes.
“Before I started, I was thinking four-under was going to be the cut mark,” said Forrest, who is now hoping his morale-boosting late show can spark a turnaround in his golfing fortunes after a trying spell on the tour.
“If you picked one hole on the course that’s the toughest to birdie with a certain pin, the 18th would be it. To pull one out of the bag there was cool. It’s moments like that when you get a bit of belief back.
“Golf is such small margins and it doesn’t take much to get things going in the right direction again.
“When you are having a bad run, it feels like you will never play well again. And when you are playing well, it is the opposite. It’s about reminding yourself that it will come back if you keep working at it.”
Calum Hill missed the three-under cut by a shot while Ewen Ferguson, the winner of the BMW International Open last weekend, was brought back down to earth as he exited on one-over.
It’s a humbling old game.
