Bob MacIntyre’s Players Dreams Shattered. But he found meaning in defeat

Robert MacIntyre walked down the 16th fairway on Sunday and knew what awaited him at the end of the final two and a half holes at TPC Sawgrass. He has been in this position before and he got over the line. But there are levels of winning in pro golf. MacIntyre knows this well. He won the RBC Canadian Open and captured his home Scottish Open, winning a tournament close to his heart.

But some competitions are different – because of what it means to them everyone and what winning says about you. They live forever.

Whatever you do in the fifth major, the Players Championship is one of those tournaments. It’s in a bit of a category below big four, but its importance is clear. “I’m very honored to be able to call myself the Players’ Champion,” said Rory McIlroy after winning in 2019. “I said last year, if I had continued my career and not won this tournament, I would have felt like I missed something.”

Bob MacIntyre wanted to win The Players. Because it would put him alongside Sandy Lyle as the only Scottish golfers to win a major PGA Tour event. Because it would record his name in history. But also because now he believes he can. He believes he has won major golf tournaments. Last Sunday’s race that came up short at the US Open told him that. Maybe he always believed, but now there was physical evidence.

“I’ve learned a lot; that I can handle being hot under the gun of that,” MacIntyre later said of his Oakmont daughter. “US Open, the hardest test you can have, and I had a chance to go down. For me, it was to see how I would react and how I would get up. I thought I did everything I could and I just got beaten by my best man of the day.”

JJ Spaun beat Bob MacIntyre that day in soggy Pittsburgh, but the lesson was very important. On Sunday at TPC Sawgrass, it happened again. MacIntyre found himself with a two-and-three shot to play in another career-defining event. He knew he would need to close the shots to catch Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young, and the par-5 16th provided the 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 very hot, and the 7 wood was unlikely to return to the pin. He hit the 7 wood, hoping to get close to the green for a shot to get up and down for birdie. But the ball went left and was buried in the rough, giving MacIntryre the “worst lie” he could get. He tried to chip it in front of the putt, but it came out too fast, rolled onto the 16th green and into the lake, taking the dreams of MacIntyre’s Players with it.

That is the identity of the Players. The pressure is already on 11, but on Sunday it goes up to another level, especially with a bunch of accidents at every corner. MacIntyre heard it, and it was heavy. It’s a fine line to walk: want something so bad but have the discipline not to make a fatal mistake in pursuit of it.

“It was frustrating,” MacIntyre said after finishing fourth, three strokes behind Young’s winning point. “I was actually fighting for food at the start of the back 9. Yeah, that’s what I want to do. That’s where I want to compete. Obviously, last year was kind of a big wake-up call for me to know that I can really compete at the top end of world golf. I had the opportunity today to do something very special that obviously Sandy was the last in our country to do.

“In the middle of the back nine, I thought I came in with a shout. The way I play, I drive it well, I put it unbelievable, it was to get that ball inside 30 meters and look out. I was just disappointed that the back nine finished, but I shot.”

As rains threatened to pour down at Oakmont last June, MacIntyre, who started that Sunday seven shots behind 54-hole leader Sam Burns, found the strength to tell himself he could do it. He could see and feel that his game could withstand the toughest tests in golf and hold up where others crumbled. He knew this was because of him.

“Today was the day when I said to myself, Why not? Why not me today?” MacIntyre said in Oakmont.

Spaun won, but MacIntyre left Oakmont with a feeling he didn’t have when he arrived earlier in the week. He will leave TPC Sawgrass feeling it again, even if his charge on the back-9 ended in a dead end.

Sure, his closing bogeys on 14 and 16 left a bad taste in his mouth, but the big picture is bright. You see that. It was another data point for Bob MacIntyre to fall back on as he continued to climb.

“I’m a religious guy,” MacIntyre said in Oakmont.

That belief was not removed – it was only hardened – one bad shot while chasing history from the players.