Andy Murray‘s playing partner offered an encouraging verdict on his bid to become a scratch golfer following his retirement from tennis. The 37-year-old was one of the stars of a celebrity pro-am tournament ahead of this week’s BMW PGA Championship.
Murray teamed up with Robert MacIntyre, who recently claimed his first PGA Tour win, for the unique event at Wentworth. They ended up finishing 13 shots behind the leaders but MacIntyre was left impressed by Murray’s display on the course.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, he shared a picture of Murray eating a celebratory ice cream after finishing his round alongside the caption: “Got Andy Murray on my diet! Unreal to spend time with Andy today, one of my sporting heroes. Won’t be long till he’s off scratch.”
Murray has made no secret of his desire to improve his golf skills, having recently taken a private lesson in a bid to sharpen up. He is determined to become a scratch golfer but knows it will take some time before he begins to see the fruits of his labour.
“A couple years, probably,” he said when asked to put a timeframe on his goal. “I think so. I mean, I’m obviously getting to practice a lot more than the average person.
“I obviously played a bit when I was younger, and if I can get the right sort of lessons and practise the right things, then yeah, I’ve got a chance of doing that I think in a couple years. The lessons have made a huge difference. That’s been the most important thing for me.
“I used to go down to the range and hit lots of balls, and I could hit a few good ones, but if you have a fundamental flaw in your swing or what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter how many balls you hit on the range. So getting lessons and practising those things is helping.”
Speaking after the pro-am event at Wentworth, Murray described the experience as ‘brilliant’ despite admitting that he ‘couldn’t really feel my arms and legs‘ at the start.
“It’s a different sort of nerves because you are comfortable in the tennis environment,” he explained. “I’m not thinking I’m going to walk out on the tennis court and forget how to hit the ball. You just want to perform well.
“Whereas here, you’re sort of nervous. There’s people standing like five metres away from where I’m driving, and I’m like: ‘I’m useless at this game’. You just want to try and keep the ball in play and don’t mess up too much.”