Small World is not for Hendry AMEN CORNERED
Bob should be gearing up for his Masters debut but he’s stuck indoors thinking about his golfing future
BY NEIL GOULDING
STEPHEN HENDRY insists a boiled-down version of the World Championship would be a waste of time for everyone.
The seven-time world champion was due to commentate on snooker’s blue riband tournament for the BBC in Sheffield later this month.
The championship has now been postponed until either July or August because of the coronavirus, with rumours circulating that the event could be shortened to fit it into a packed calendar.
Hendry said: “It would be great if it could be played at some point but if you do it you’ve got to it properly, or not at all. The World Championship is the biggest test, any sort of scaled-down version just wouldn’t be right.
“If the organisers said it’s best of nine frames it wouldn’t work.
“This time of year all your thoughts would be on the Crucible and looking forward to going there.
“When I was playing I would probably start thinking about the Crucible just after the Masters had finished. I did an Instagram live with Judd Trump and he said he starts thinking about the World Championship in January.
“You’d presume the two or three Chinese events which start the season wouldn’t be on, so there should be a space.
“There’s lots of things to consider but whether they could get the Crucible again remains to be seen.”
Hendry admits even trying to play tournaments behind closed doors is too much of a risk.
He said: “Just televising events involves around 80 to 90 people, so it is always going to be difficult.
“All it takes is one person to come down with the virus and the whole thing would have to come off.”
ROBERT MacINTYRE could have been preparing for a debut at The Masters next week.
Instead, he’s chipping balls out of his bedroom window into wheelie bins and moving buckets, helping as a home-school teacher and gasping at Rory McIlroy’s superhuman numbers as he overheats his Peloton.
But rather than dwell on what might have been, MacIntyre concentrates on what will be next.
The Scottish star may be in Oban and not Georgia but in terms of maintaining his progression within the elite of world golf, he might just be in the perfect place.
MacIntyre’s 2019 was sensational. Rookie of the Year and an instant success on the European Tour, the 23-year-old was being tipped to quickly take the next big step and burst into the world’s top 50. But his gains were coming with pain. The starlet had been suffering from a hand injury. Bravely, he was fighting through it but it was stuttering his momentum.
No one in the world wanted coronavirus to strike and MacIntyre’s major concerns are that his family and friends are staying safe.
However, he is trying to be positive about the enforced lay-off and uses the time to heal and reset.
MacIntyre said: “This break has actually come at a good time for me.
“My hand has been bothering me since The Open last year, a bit of an ongoing issue.
“I battled through it and had eight weeks off at the end of last year. I thought that had fixed it but I turned up in Abu Dhabi and I could hardly hit the ball.
“I managed to get through it at the start of the season but now I have a decent break it should be fully healed and ready to go when we start up.
“I’d rather be out competing but at this time it’s just about trying to better myself, get fitter, get my swing better and just get on with it. This
ROBERT MacINTYRE
BY CRAIG SWAN c.swan@dailyrecord.co.uk is not the time to be sitting about doing nothing.”
As well as regaining fitness and working on his game out the back door in a 12-foot driving range hastily constructed in tandem with his dad Dougie, MacIntyre is finding plenty of ways to stay active.
His social media clips flicking balls out of the bedroom were a huge hit and he said: “My mum was wanting me to do some painting around the house.
“I was getting changed and thought I could shoot something out the window into the wheelie bins that we moved into the middle of the grass.
“I started off chipping into the wheelie bins from my bedroom. Then I thought it was too easy. So we moved it on to one of the boys in the buggy with a bucket of water in the back. It took about 15 attempts to get it. That was just on a little tea break.”
MacIntyre’s skills with a club make that stuff easy. Being a part-time teacher to foster brothers Thomas and Dan and professional-level cyclist not so much.
He said: “I have taken a shift on the home-schooling. Trying to tick over my brain.
“I used to be all right at maths. It’s English that gets me, asking me questions about that.
“I’m passing that straight on to my mum or my sister.
“I’m trying to lose a bit of weight, using the Peloton to try to get stronger and get fitter.
“Mum’s been told not to do baking but my sisters are baking just now
so it’ll be difficult for the next few weeks. The Peloton is on overheat. We’ve been using it non-stop.
“I’ve seen Billy Horschel and Rory’s numbers and they’re not even normal. It’s not human the numbers they churn out.
“I’ve got a guy back home who has one of them and we were doing it on Monday. It’s good you can go up against someone and they push you. We’ll take the Oban mountains over any place in the world!”
MacIntyre’s upbeat outlook shines in these difficult times. And, by a quirk of fate, The Masters dream may not be over yet along with a crack at the other three Majors this term if the pandemic clears and they can be rescheduled.
He added: “What have I learned in the past year? Just that my game’s good enough to compete at the top end of world golf. I always thought turning from amateur to professional that the game was going to be so different but I’ve found that it’s not.
“I am still working way. I am always positive about these things.
“From where I was, getting into the top 50 in the world in such a short space of time (to qualify for Masters) was going to be really hard.
“But now nobody knows what is going to happen. If it gets played this year, there might be a different cut-off date to be playing in it. That might be the case.
“But now is about staying safe, keeping the family safe and just staying healthy.”
MacIntyre spoke as an Aberdeen Standard Investments ambassador.