Robert McIntyre's coach discusses Europe's chances at Bethpage Black, how to prepare for the Ryder Cup and the US team's weaknesses.
Robert MacIntyre’s coach Simon Shanks has backed Europe to follow up their victory in Rome to retain the Ryder Cup this year on American soil.
Europe may be the underdogs in the golf betting, but Shanks believes the American team has some weaknesses that Luke Donald’s men can exploit.
In our exclusive interview ahead of the tournament that will take place at Bethpage Black this month, the PGA golf coach also discussed how the players will be preparing for the competition, and the talismanic power of Rory McIlroy.
How do you prepare your players for the Ryder Cup compared to other Majors and tournaments?
You want to be able to say it’s just going to be another golf tournament – prepare as normal.
But I’m not sure you can say that about the Ryder Cup. And certainly not the Ryder Cup in New York at Bethpage!
From a technical perspective, you’re going to try and feel like you’re preparing for any other golf tournament. But it’s always going to be an underlying feeling that it’s going to be a very difficult event to play in; more in terms of the crowd and the general feel of the place when we’re there.
Ryder Cups so far have very much gone to the home team. It’s been a bit of a deadlock from that point of view.
It’s going to be a difficult one to get over the line for the whole team.
Bob, who I am with at the Ryder Cup this year, prepares a certain way and we pretty much have got to it now where even Majors are just another golf tournament. And we go ahead and do our thing and see what the week brings.
What will the timetable look like during the week?
After Wentworth the guys are going over on a scouting trip ahead of the Cup. The week itself, we get together on Monday to do all the media things. From Tuesday onwards it’s pretty much prep time and getting used to pairings, foursomes and the four ball, and also getting used to the golf course.
I think the 2019 PGA was the last time the guys would have played there so it’s been a while since they’ve played at Bethpage.
What’s been your focus ahead of the Ryder Cup?
This year has statistically been Bob’s best year, even though last year he won twice. This year all the levels of his game have risen really. It will just be making sure we’re ticking the right boxes in that regard.
Bethpage itself? If you’re long off the tee it is a bonus which seems to be the same with a lot of the courses in America at the moment. A lot of the approaches are uphill to raised greens, so we’ll be looking to maximise how we hit the ball high, can we stop it quickly on the raised greens.
And then from there it’s going to be who holes the most putts really.
That’s not my role within the MacIntyre camp. I’m sure he’ll raise himself with his putting coach Mike to get himself in position for that.
What do you put this down to?
The first few months on the PGA Tour weren’t easy for him. Adapting to being away from Scotland, being away from Oban and lots of different grass types. Your short game becomes a little bit more difficult in the US when you’re playing on Bermuda grass where the grain of the grass is very difficult to get good contact on the golf ball.
You start out in the West Coast and there’s a lot of poa annua greens that can be a bit funky to putt on. I think it was getting used to the conditions to play in the new venues.
Generally, his long game, his tee to green game has been pretty solid for two years. He’s getting the ball on the fairway a lot more, hitting lots of greens, giving himself a lot of chances with the putter and then on the weeks where the putter behaves itself, you’re going to contend.
Bob’s become a lot more patient in his own game and played the long game a little bit more rather than in the past being a younger man, he was wanting it quickly, which we all do.
But then I think it’s that period of time when you come to realise that sometimes T20 is quite a good week and then, when things are on, you can go ahead and make a rush for the top spot.
From his golfing background, his shinty background up in Scotland now, he’s a competitor. He wants to win.
When there’s something up for grabs, he’s going to go towards it, he’s not going to shy away.
That’s one of the things that’s really helped him in the two opportunities he had to win in 2024. He took them in Canada and Scotland.
How does he approach the challenge of playing on US soil?
That’s one of the benefits he’s found of being able to solidify himself in the top 50 on the PGA Tour and the FedEx. He can pretty much choose his schedule, play the elevated events, which obviously are bigger events.
They tend to come in runs so he can have two or three weeks at home and be able to spend some time back in Scotland in the meantime and then be able to come back out and play two or three weeks in a row when it’s a Major or a couple of elevated events.
That’s always the plan. If you can stay in that top 50 in the FedEx, I think you can get some kind of balance of being able to head back home and come back out to America.
Have we already seen Bob at his best or is there more to come?
He’s eighth in the world now. There’s not a huge amount for him to get better in terms of it really is the tip of the iceberg.
If you look at the guys that are ahead of him Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler it’s about his top game turning up week in week out.
We know when he’s at his best he can live with those guys; second place in the US Open, top ten in the Open this year. So, we know he can sit at that top table.
But can we produce that level week in week out? I think it’s just more a season long consistency playing at that top 10 in the world level is where we’re going to see him get further up.
I know he’ll probably give a different answer, that he wants to go and find another 20 more yards and bomb it. That’s what I think anyway!
Is it only a matter of time before he wins a Major?
His game stacks up for a Major. He showed that at Oakmont. He believes it. And I think that’s the big thing; if he believes he can do it, the whole team are right behind him. And it’s really going to be a case of being in position in a Major and seeing where the cards fall.
He was a 65 foot putt from J.J. Spaun away from being in a playoff. So, you have to believe that you can play the golf required to contend in one of those. And then when you’re in position, whether it falls or not, it’s a little bit in the lap of the Gods.
He’s had three top 10s in the Open now. You’d fancy getting the right side of the draw in an Open, which is a massive thing. That would give him a great opportunity. He’s just shown in the US Open that he can do it. He’s done well in the Masters, with two top 20s.
So, it’s difficult to pinpoint one. That’s the great thing, not to try and build your hopes for a particular Major. I don’t think you can be picky, but his game is up there.
He’s playing full-time in the States now, so you know a PGA, a US Open suits him. In the camp we say they’re just another big event in which he is playing week in week out.
How could the Ryder Cup in New York help him get over the line in future?
Week in week out, the fans that they play in front of, they’re pretty passionate and they like their golf and sometimes maybe, step over the line a little bit too far with what they’re doing.
Bob found a little bit of that in one or two of the events recently. He has said himself that he learned a few lessons for Bethpage from some of the fan interactions that he’s had.
If you can make the most of the fans in the tournament and not let them get on top of you can ride the wave a little bit. But if they do get on top, they’re going to be pretty merciless.
What’s Bob like off the course?
Not very different to what you see day to day on the PGA Tour really. He’s a passionate guy in terms of his golf; he loves all sports, he always keeps abreast of what’s going on north of the border in terms of football. We always get an update on how his local Shinty team are doing.
He very much keeps his family life to himself, and he likes a normal sort of existence really.
Oban Celtic is his team and I’m pretty sure he follows Manchester United as well!
This is his second Ryder Cup, he was a bit of a rookie back in Rome. He’ll be one of the senior pros now. Will that experience will hold him in good stead?
Back in Rome, he did qualify in third sport and was a rookie. He’d won at that course, which was a benefit as well, having won at Marco Simone in 2022. And then he played four balls with Justin Rose, which was a great experience for Bob. But now, two years down the line, having won twice on the PGA Tour, and with a load of experience, and being top ten in the world, you’d expect him to play more of the matches now in terms of where he is as a player.
In 2024 he was the most improved player in terms of the strokes gained year on year. So, he has come on a huge amount and he’s now more of an integral part of the team than he was when he played the first time.
Now the whole team are almost all PGA Tour and LIV, whereas Bob, I think, was the only mainly DP World Tour player in the team last time, whereas this year it’s mainly PGA Tour.
That gives you an idea of where the whole team is, not just Bob. They’ve all elevated their game, and I think it’s going to be a good match for the Americans.
What’s the key thing that you’ve worked on as his coach? Are you a swing coach? What is your title?
I think you can easily get pigeonholed; he’s a swing coach, he’s a short game coach. I’m Bob’s golf coach.
He’s very much his own man in terms of his game. What I’ve focused on are mainly a few bits and habits that he finds in his swing. It’s mainly set up and balanced based to be honest.
He can find that his weight gets a little bit too much on his toes, then makes adjustments in his downswing from there and that really gives him his wide misses.
As long as we reduce that, then he feels like he can play and compete. We do use Trackman a lot, because Bob likes to hit the ball both a fade and a draw when it suits him. So, we use the Trackman for feedback for whether we’re in a position to be able to hit those shots that he requires when he plays.
Looking more broadly, Scottie’s got a rather unique swing, hasn’t he? As a coach, would you try and tell him to change something or if it’s not broke, don’t fix it?
He’s a generational player. I don’t think we know yet exactly where he’s going to sit in the whole scheme of things, of where he is in terms of comparisons with players Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. That’s the kind of player that we’re looking at now in terms of Scottie Sheffler. He’s at that level of play.
He’s easily the best in the world at the moment. It would be a fool to go in there and change things! The great thing with Scottie is that he quite evidently has a great routine. You see him with the moulded grip and his practice swings always look the same. He’s got great control over how far the ball flies.
He’s the benchmark that everyone is aiming for. He’s got great course management skills and gets the ball around most golf courses really well. It just looks a bit funky, doesn’t it!
But the great thing is he’s not at all self-conscious about how it looks. He really is about where the ball goes and what the ball’s doing.
I think it can be quite easy with using our smartphones, Trackman and AI to look at our golf swings and try to make them picture perfect and we lose the idea that actually golf is what the ball does and if we can control that, then we’ve got a good chance.
Is AI used in golf?
It’s starting to bleed into certain areas. I think you can turn a 2D video into a 3D biomechanics video. I wouldn’t say it’s widespread yet, but it’s there. We all write an email using ChatGPT. So why wouldn’t golf use it?
Rory is another talismanic figure obviously and he completed the Grand Slam at Augusta. He’s gone a bit quiet of late, but if anyone’s going to be fired up by Ryder Cup it’s him isn’t it?
100 per cent. He got the Grand Slam out of the way. Not many players have that as a worry!
The amount that took out of him in April at Augusta was immense really. He won it and lost it three times on the back nine. That’s going to take it out of you. It was also ten years between Majors as well
So I think you can forgive him for six months off really. Well, not off, just not at his brilliant peak.
The thing with Rory is everyone notices and says that he’s in a slump if he hasn’t won. And to stay at that level, where Scottie is at the moment, it’s an amazing level to be at. And Rory’s done that for, you know, 10, 15 years now. He’s been right at the top of the game.
Nobody else has really done that other than maybe Tiger. But Tiger, with his injuries would move in and out of that top spot. Rory though has stayed at such a high level for such a long time.
And we judge him by different rules because it’s Rory, don’t we?
We say he should be winning a Major every year or five tournaments. But when it doesn’t quite match that, everyone feels like his game’s fallen off. But he’s still comfortably one of the best players in the world.
It’s a familiar look to the European team. How important is that in terms of understanding what the Ryder Cup experience is like? I’m sure there’s nothing else like it in golf. The pressures change everything, don’t they?
If you look back at when Team Europe had their successes in America, the first time in the late 80s they won at Muirfield Village in ‘87, that team looked familiar from Ryder Cup to Ryder Cup.
There wasn’t a huge amount of churn in those teams. Then in the 2000s the team looked similar, with Montie, Langer, those kinds of players.
It‘s going to be a benefit this year being away with everyone having had that success together at Marco Simone. and then being able to turn up at Bethpage with that team feel having had all that success two years ago and knowing that there’s some really good partnerships.
These can be re-used like Justin and Bob again, Viktor and Ludwig. They’re already ready to go.
So, from Luke’s perspective he’s got less things to weigh up about what or might not work in terms of pairing. He pretty much knows what is going to work because they’ve proven successful.
Can it work in America, that’s going to be the big question?
And it’s like the old days of Seve and Jose Maria Olazabal. Those core pairings, which were the backbone of the team.
This team’s pretty young. It’s quite exciting. If those guys can put in two or three more Ryder Cups, there could be a good level of success, with the same team pretty much year in year out.
How do you compare the two teams now they’ve both been named and what’s you’re thinking about who could win, who should win or who will win?
In such a cauldron atmosphere I would say the rookies are going to be an interesting one. The US team has got more rookies, four, in their team. But calling a US Open champion, JJ Spaun, a rookie shows their strength! You’ve also got Ben Griffin, Russell Henley and Cameron Young.
They’re all seasoned players; they’re winning on the PGA Tour. We’ve got one rookie and that is Rasmus Hojgaard who sat next to Luke Donald last time in Italy watching Nicolai, his brother play.
So, it’s not an entirely unknown quantity for Rasmus. If you base it on how many rookies there are, Europe edges it.
Team USA do have Scottie Scheffler, but he can’t win all the points so he has to play with a partner for two days and then an 18-hole singles where anything can happen.
From a stats point of view, the stats guys would say team USA have probably got the better team, but it just depends how much of a wave that we can ride on from Team Europe’s perspective off the back of the win in Rome.
The team element seems to appeal to the Europeans. Americans always seem more individualistic, the Americans are getting paid, and the Europeans aren’t. There are differences in approach, aren’t there?
Last time it was all the business of not wearing a hat and wanting to be paid and certainly being around Team Europe, there was no talk of that.
It’s just a very different look at the team. Team Europe players are desperate to get on the team. We saw that with Matt Wallace the other day in Switzerland and how much it would mean to him to have made it in the team.
I’m not sure if you see that from the US players but maybe they show it in a different way; we are all different beasts aren’t we, motivated by different things.
Are you pleased that Matt Fitzpatrick has come back to form and gone on the team?
You’ve got a major champion there, in Matt Fitzpatrick. He had a little bit of a downturn at the start of this year in terms of his own form. But you know, he’s won big tournaments, US Opens, PGA Tour events, big events here in Europe. He’s the kind of player you don’t really want to be sat at home in a Ryder Cup.
Keegan decided that he couldn’t be a player and captain. Is that inevitable? There’s no way he could have done both, was there?
That would be the thought. But with the golf he’s played in the last 18 months, he probably should be on the team.
It’s a surprise to me that he was captain in the first place, not that he wouldn’t be a Ryder Cup captain in the future. But he was probably still a good chance of playing himself into the team. He was playing great golf when he accepted the captaincy.
It’s a bit of an odd situation really. Obviously, he wanted to be part of the Ryder Cup and being the captain would have guaranteed that. But who’d have known 18 months down the line he was playing the best golf his life and could be in the team as a player.
Where would you look at the strengths and weaknesses of each team starting with Europe? What’s their great strength?
Definitely the team aspect. They’re definitely together as a team. Having travelled with Bob on the PGA Tour, I definitely see that they talk together still as a team two years on.
Two years ago in Italy, I think it was very much the feeling that the US team were going to be the bombers and the best drivers of the ball and maybe the edge would have been in approach play for Europe. So, it was a case of trying to set it up where there wasn’t such an advantage from long and maybe offline – so being an accurate side was going to be the benefit.
Team Europe has done that in the past; how they set up in Paris as well. This time they’re not going to have that opportunity, but I’m not sure that the advantage off the tee in New York is there as much now. In the past the US team may have been a bit longer; maybe not quite that much straighter, but definitely a longer team.
This year, it’s probably Team Europe in terms of that position. We’re going to be able to get it down there and have a bit more loft in our hands. With those raised greens at Bethpage that could be an advantage.
On the downside, if the crowd gets on top of them early, if they lose, go down in some of the early matches on the first day, I think that could be difficult to come back from. If you’re 4-0 down in the first session, as the US found themselves in 2023, it’s a difficult place to come back from.
Getting off to a good start is going to be key.
Conversely with the USA, where’s their strength and where can they be exploited?
There are a few guys that maybe don’t get it out there as far as some of the teams gone past in terms of driver distance.
Harmony hasn’t always been their strong point. As long as they’re in harmony, and with the payment thing put to bed now, maybe they’re going to be a bit more in harmony as a team.
There are a few rookies there. How they get bled into the team will be interesting.
There’s a few players that are in the team, such as Xander Schauffele who is not quite in the form he was last year when he won two Majors. So some of their top guys aren’t in the team, there’s a few guys that haven’t qualified who were in the team last time.
When they won at Whistling Straits four years ago, it was difficult to see how that team wouldn’t win Ryder Clubs for years to come.
LIV has broken that up in terms of Brooks, DJ, Bryson. You’ve got Bryson and the team, but no Brooks this time. There are quite a few less big voices or big players in their team that they had.
Maybe that will help them come together a bit more. I don’t know whether if you’ve got a few less big characters in the changing room sometimes that can be quite a difficult situation to be in.
Certainly, four years on from what was quite a big win for the team USA at Whistling Straits it is a very different team. It just shows how quickly professional sport can change in terms of the turnover of talent. Golf is a very deep sport, certainly in America. But can they create a good team from quite a big turnover in players?
Speaking of LIV, Jon Rahm’s been lost to that tour. How big a player can he be in the Ryder Cup?
On his day he’s probably in the top three players in the world. You’ve to have him on your team. it would be foolish not to. He had his reasons for going to LIV. It’s just a shame they’re not all playing the same tournaments together; more than just four times a year.
Does the LIV format blunt a player’s game?
It’s an interesting question. I think the easiest way to answer that would be how many of those players that have gone to LIV would really make a difference if you brought them back to the PGA Tour. I don’t know if there’s more than five or ten that you’d probably say, right, we could do with those guys on the PGA Tour again.
That kind of answers the question really. LIV doesn’t seem to have the white heat of competition. It doesn’t seem to have the viewership that the PGA Tour has. I don’t follow it, but I don’t coach any players on it!
But it’s interesting to see what Bryson DeChambeau has done with his career from going to LIV. It seems to have been good for him. But for Jon Rahm, it hasn’t really. He did have a chance at the PGA this year, but he hasn’t really been such a force in the Majors since being at LIV.
We’ve seen Rory, Tommy and Justin winning in the States recently. Does that put pressure on them or is it good that we have that sort of experience of winning over there to lean into?
It can only be a good thing. Look at Justin Rose aged 44 still winning PGA Tour events and putting everything into it to get into this team. He has had some great finishes in Majors this year and for him to be in great form to get himself into a position to be able to qualify for the team when not being a pick tells you everything about that man.
Tommy finally ended the disappointment of finishing second in PGA Tournaments by getting over the line at East Lake. That’s got to be of great value to the team. So I think it can only be a good thing in terms of the way the team has played coming into the Ryder Cup.
How popular is Tommy Fleetwood?
He is such a popular figure. Even the fans in the States seem to take to him. Hopefully they’ll be the same when we turn up in New York.
What do you make of the needle between Bradley and Rory? is it all just part of the build up and sort of poking the hornet’s nest?
I haven’t really got too involved in what they have said to each other. It’s all part of the fun I suppose. But we don’t want to turn the Ryder Cup into WWE, but it’s good to have a little bit of needle going into the tournament.
If Bob was to face Scottie in the singles, how much of a challenge would that be? He’s got it in him to beat Scotty, hasn’t he?
He played 36 holes with Scottie at the BMW championship at Cabe’s Valley two or three weeks ago. After day one, he was still ahead of Scottie and Scottie got the better of him on the Sunday.
I think Bob would relish that opportunity to play Scottie and maybe get one back for the BMW. He certainly wouldn’t shy away from it at all.
Putting you on the spot, what’s your verdict?
I do think it’s going to be close all the way. The home advantage, the home fans and the fact they’ve got Scottie on the team could make a difference.
There’s been a bit of a deadlock in terms of the teams winning their home Ryder Cup.
I think Europe though, off the back of Rome, could do it this time.
All the players seem to have upped their game from two years ago. I think they can go ahead and maybe pull up an upset in Bethpage.
What’s your role during the week during the tournament or the event? Are you just on the sidelines?
Hopefully all the work will have been done before the first ball gets hit on Friday morning. I’m there during the matches just in case Bob feels he needs a little bit of a tune up in a certain area.
The idea is that we get all our prep done in the days leading up to it. Hopefully I’ll be able to watch without too much of a worry about the state of Bob’s game. Hopefully we’ll be in a good place.
Does he have any particular routines or sort of good luck charms or things that he likes to keep to?
No, I don’t think so. He certainly sticks to his routine in terms of his physical warm up before he starts hitting golf balls. He likes to putt before hitting golf balls and then goes through the bag and then off he goes to the tee. He pretty much sticks the same routine each day.
