Breaking News: Andy Murray Comparisons Spiral Out of Control and It’s Obvious Why After…

It’s now more than five years since this correspondent wrote those words and, perhaps for the one and only time, it’s beginning to look as though I’m actually being proved right in terms of being ahead of the game.

At a time when Murray, speaking at the Australian Open, thought the end for him was nigh in terms of playing before being proved wrong, of course, Bob MacIntyre had just started out in his rookie season on the DP World Tour.

In that particular week, he was playing in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and, though not necessarily in terms of his scores, there was something about the way the Oban man went about his business that I still vividly recall to this day.

Others were impressed, too. “He is probably better than I was 22,” opined Tommy Fleetwood, who played with him that week. “He is very smart and golf-savvy. As long as he stays on the right path, he’ll be fine. He has a good outlook. He’ll do very well.”

I have to add that, due to it being just his fifth start on the main tour, I pointed out back then that it as only fair to MacIntyre that things should be kept in perspective because Murray’s shoes, after all, were always going to take some filling no matter what sport his successor as that main flag bearer comes from.

Now 27, MacIntyre still has a long way to go to even come close to matching Murray’s career in tennis, but it’s ironic, certainly to me anyway, at a time when the double Wimbledon champion is close to bringing down the curtain that his young compatriot is beginning to be mentioned in the same breath as him by lots of others.

They’ve seen that MacIntyre is not only a world-class talent but is also someone that transcends his sport, having become popular very quickly as he first showed signs of being able to go toe-to-toe with the big boys and now having a small army of fans desperate to see him deliver Scottish success.

Only time will tell if he’ll experience anything better than holing a 20-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to become the first home player in 25 years to win the Genesis Scottish Open, as he did on Sunday at The Renaissance Club just 12 months after being denied by a brilliant birdie-birdie finish by Rory McIlroy.

But, boy, is it going to be exciting for all of us to sit back and see what now lies ahead because the golfer from a wee town on the west coast has secured a seat at the very top table in golf after breaking into the world’s top 20 – he climbed from 44th to 16th on the back of a breakthrough Rolex Series event success – for the first time.

“Yes, he won yesterday, so I definitely think he can win again,” replied Ludvig Aberg, his Ryder Cup team-mate from Rome last year, to being asked about MacIntyre’s chances in this week’s 152nd Open as the world No 4 spoke to the media at Royal Troon on Monday. “Fair play to Bob yesterday, he did it tremendously. It’s not easy going out and playing in front of a big crowd like that and perform and he did that very well.”

Brian Harman, last year’s Champion Golfer of the Year, was also asked about his fellow lefty in the first batch of official interviews in Claret Jug week. “Bob and I have become friends. He’s an excellent player,” said the American. “That was a really cool finish yesterday. I was really happy for him.”

MacIntyre admitted himself not too along that he’d lost his mojo as he struggled to come to terms with his new working environment on the PGA Tour but, ever since paying a visit home to be reminded that it’s always there when he needs to be reminded about what helps bring out the best in him, he’s turned a huge corner in his career.

“I chatted with him,” added Harman. “I can’t imagine how hard it is to uproot and go somewhere else. He certainly had a tough go of it as far as adjusting, but at the of the struggle is usually something really cool and I think he’s doing fantastic.”

As he’d predicted on Sunday night, MacIntyre didn’t make it to Troon for his own scheduled 3pm media conference on Monday, having understandably received The R&A’s blessing to move that back to Wednesday. It was nonsensical, though, to see some comments on social media claiming that he shouldn’t have been talking about how he was planning to “celebrate hard” before arriving in Ayrshire for the season’s final major.

For starters, he’s not a big drinker and never has been. When you are talking about the one event above any other than he wanted to win in his career, though, it was only right that he wanted to celebrate it properly with family and friends, as they duly did.

“It was exactly what was needed,” said Iain Stoddart, MacIntyre’s manager, having struck up their relationship when he was still in the amateur ranks and now enjoying being part of something special along with every other member of his backroom team. “All the right people were there, all his closest friends and his nearest and dearest.

“It was an important moment in Bob’s career and it was right to celebrate. Whatever version of Bob that rolls up at Troon will roll up, but he felt it was right to mark the win.”

On the evidence so far, more are to come and, though he might not be in the Andy Murray league yet, he’s starting to get there and people are loving the similarities between the two, notably a never-say-die attitude when it comes to sport.