Bob MacIntyre’s Players dreams slipped away. But he found meaning in defeat

Robert MacIntyre walked down the 16th fairway on Sunday and knew what could be waiting for him at the end of the final two-and-a-half holes at TPC Sawgrass. He had been in this position before and got it over the line. But there are levels to winning in pro golf. MacIntyre knows this well. He has won the RBC Canadian Open and captured his home Scottish Open, winning the championship that was nearest to his heart.

But some tournaments are different — because of what they mean to everyone and what winning them says about you. They live forever.

Whatever you make of the fifth-major talk, the Players Championship is one of those tournaments. It exists in a tier slightly below the four majors, but its importance is clear. “Very honored to be able to call myself a Players champion,” Rory McIlroy said after winning in 2019. “I said last year, if I went through my career and I hadn’t won this tournament, I would have felt like I missed out on something.”

Bob MacIntyre wanted to win the Players. Because it would put him alongside Sandy Lyle as the only Scottish golfers to win the PGA Tour’s flagship event. Because it would etch his name in history. But also because now he believes he can. He believes he’s made to win big golf tournaments. Last summer’s Sunday run that came up just short at the U.S. Open told him that. Perhaps he always believed it, but now there was concrete proof.

“I learned so much; that I can handle the heat under the gun of that,” MacIntyre said later of his Oakmont near-miss. “U.S. Open, toughest test you can have, and I had a chance coming down the stretch. For me, it was to be able to see how I was going to react and how I was going to stand up. I thought I had done everything I could and I was just beaten my the better man on the day.”

J.J. Spaun beat Bob MacIntyre that day in soggy Pittsburgh, but the lesson was invaluable. On Sunday at TPC Sawgrass, it was there again. MacIntyre found himself two shots back with three to play at another career-defining event. He knew he would need closing fireworks to catch Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young, and the par-5 16th presented an opportunity to send a jolt up the leaderboard. MacIntyre split the fairway but found himself between clubs from 246 yards out. The 3-wood would come in too hot, and the 7-wood was unlikely to get all the way back to the pin. He hit 7 wood, hoping to come up just short of the green to give himself a shot to get up-and-down for birdie. But the ball drifted left and buried in the rough, giving MacIntryre “the worst lie” he could get. He tried to chop it out onto the front of the putting surface, but it came out fast, rolled across the crispy 16th green and deposited itself into the pond, taking MacIntyre’s Players dreams with it.

That’s the Players’ identity. The pressure is already at an 11, but on Sunday it rises to a different level, especially on a closing stretch where carnage lurks around every corner. MacIntyre felt it, and it was heavy. It’s a fine line to walk: to want something so badly but have the discipline not to make a back-breaking mistake in pursuit of it.

“It was stressful,” MacIntyre said after his fourth-place finish, three strokes behind Young’s winning score. “I was actually struggling to eat early in the back nine. Yeah, it’s what I want to do. It’s where I want to compete. Obviously, last year was a big kind of wake-up call for me in order to know that I can really compete at the top end of world golf. I had a chance today to do something very special that obviously Sandy was the last one to do it from our country.

“Middle of that back nine, I really thought I was in with a shout. The way I’m playing, driving it beautifully, putting unbelievable, it was just a matter of getting that ball inside 30 feet and then look out. Just disappointed with the bogeys on the back nine to finish, but I gave it a shot.”

As the rains threatened to dump on daunting Oakmont last June, MacIntyre, who started that Sunday seven shots back of 54-hole leader Sam Burns, found power in telling himself he could do it. He could see and feel that his game could withstand the toughest test in golf and hold up where others crumbled. He knew this was for him.

“Today was a day that I said to myself, Why not? Why not it be me today?” MacIntyre said at Oakmont.

Spaun won, but MacIntyre left Oakmont with a feeling he didn’t have when he arrived early in the week. He’ll leave TPC Sawgrass feeling it again, even if his back-nine charge ended in a watery demise.

Sure, his closing bogeys at 14 and 16 left a bad taste in his mouth, but the bigger picture is brighter. He sees that. It was another data point for Bob MacIntyre to fall back on as he continues his ascent.

“I’m a guy that believes,” MacIntyre said at Oakmont.

That belief wasn’t rinsed away — only hardened — by one bad shot while chasing history at the Players.