Grant Forrest ditches day off to get some work in ahead of rain hitting Scottish Open

East Lothian-based Gratnt Forrest is excited about teeing up in this week's Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club. Picture: Alex Slitz/Getty Images.

East Lothian-based Grant Forrest ditched his plan to take a day off at the start of Genesis Scottish Open week after seeing the grim forecast for the next two days.

Forrest, who lives in Pencaitland, only got back from Munich, where he was playing in the BMW International Open won by compatriot Ewen Ferguson at 12.30am on Monday morning.

But, with the sun splitting the sky, he was hard at work on The Renaissance Club range with Simon Shanks, who also coaches 2023 runner up Bob MacIntyre, in the build up to this week’s $9 million event.

“There were no direct flights, so it was a late one,” said Forrest of his journey back from Germany. “I was planning on having a day off, but then I saw the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday which is not good and thought I’d get some work done.

“It’s been a bit of a struggle the past few months. It’s getting there, so I just try to keep working at it and you are never far away from turning things around in this game.”

Forrest, who is based at this week’s venue, will be playing in front of family and friends on the East Lothian coast and added: “It’s a fine line between not being too hard on yourself and being realistic. There is no point, if your results are not there, being almost delusional and thinking everything is fine and you are playing well when you are not.

“There is a middle ground. Most of us are on the half of being realistic about it, but I am looking forward to this week and having a good one to turn things around.

“I remember at the Media Day here, Bob [MacIntyre] was talking about not particularly loving it over there and a couple of weeks later he is a PGA Tour winner. It changes everything.

“Golf is just like that. Ups and downs. You know that’s just part of it all. The week I won (in the 2021 Hero Open at Fairmont St Andrews), I played terribly the week before and missed the cut. It can be a daft game and results can fluctuate so much.”

Forrest saw MacIntyre, his Bounce Sport stablemate, come close to winning at the same venue 12 months ago, when he was pipped by a birdie-birdie finish from Rory McIlroy.

“Obviously seeing Bob come so close last year as well was cool to see and you could see the emotion in him and what it meant to him,” said Forrest.

“To win your national Open is huge for anyone, but, when the event is as big as the Scottish Open is now, yeah, it would be a massive thing.

“You don’t know when it is all going to come together. You can be plugging away not really doing much in a season.

“There is so much golf played in a year that you just have to be patient, keep doing the right things and, hopefully, when things fall into place it’s one of the big weeks like he got last year.”

MacIntyre was at Wimbledon on Monday along with his European team-mates in last year’s Ryder Cup in Rome. On a day they were guests in the Royal Box, MacIntyre told the BBC about next week’s Open at Royal Troon: "I've been working hard on trying to lower the noise around it. I'm going there to perform. All I can do is try to compete as hard as I can and if I do that well, we'll be there or thereabouts.”