Robert MacIntyre had a week to forget in the Masters 2026.
The 29-year-old Scot arrived in good form, following a T2 at the Valero Texas Open and a Fourth place finish in the Players Championship. But MacIntyre’s week at Augusta National quickly unraveled during the opening round, where he quadruple-bogeyed nine on the par-5 15th en route to a first-round 80. Cameras caught MacIntyre surfing the 15th green after putting two balls in the water, and he was was reportedly reprimanded by Augusta National for the gesture. MacIntyre skipped the media after his first and second rounds and then posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Masters gnome making the same gesture after missing the cut.
On Thursday, after the first round of the RBC Legacy, MacIntyre spoke to Sky Sports’ Nick Dougherty about his tumultuous days at Augusta National.
“I know what I did is not the best way to do things,” MacIntyre said. “But look, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m trying to control my emotions. I work with someone at home. Yes, a lot has happened, and I’m disappointed about it, but I’m very good at letting things go. Things that are said elsewhere, I don’t mind. I’ve done something wrong, they tell me.
“And that’s how I go about my life. I just do what I want, how we want, not just personally, but with family and friends. And we do our business the way we want to do it. Some people like it, some people don’t. But, at the end of the day, it’s a job and I try to come out here and do the best I can.”
MacIntyre has always been an emotional player. After a poor title defense at last year’s Genesis Scottish Open, MacIntyre explained how he gets through the bad weeks “going mental” for a bit. This allows him to quickly reset and continue.
“I can go as far as I want mentally for an hour and then after that, I just come back to life,” MacIntyre said at Royal Portrush ahead of the 2025 Open. “I can do whatever I want for an hour. Everything I want. You can break things. You can literally do whatever I want for an hour. Once that hour is up, I’m done. For an hour and a half before my round, two hours before my round, I’m prepared, so no one gets in the way. It’s warm-up, training, working out in the gym, that whole six-hour, hour-and-a-half, that whole window. I’m working.
“If you have a bad day at work, you’re going to be upset. That happens more often than not even to me,” MacIntyre said afterward, laughing. “It’s almost been a while, it’s been hard in the past for me to reset, but these days, there’s so many golf tournaments and you don’t know what’s coming next week.”
Now a top-15 golfer in the world, MacIntyre knows he can’t let his emotions and frustrations consume him. The professional golf hamster wheel is always turning. A tournament ends, you win or lose, and then it’s quickly on to the next tournament. It is important to be able to press the reset button quickly. Let off some steam and get ready to go again.
But emotions are also what make Robert MacIntyre who he is. To extinguish all his fire would be to take away some of the soul of his game. It’s a tightrope to walk – sometimes you walk it cleanly and sometimes you fall.
“I’m fired up on the golf course when I’m in the tournament rounds,” MacIntyre said at the Open. “I’ll back off, I’ll say the odd thing, but some bad words. I’ll hit the bag. I’ll say some harsh things, but that’s what keeps me going. If I walk around and I’m happy that I just did a double butt or people clap, thank you very much, that’s not me. I’ve got to do something I want to do something. It’s better to keep out than for me, but for me it’s to get rid of it and then not let it affect the next shot.
The poor week at the Masters was disappointing. After one runner-up at last year’s US Open and a weekend of controversy at this year’s Players, MacIntyre is more confident than ever that he is made of the right stuff to win major championships. He left Augusta National disappointed in a performance that did not reflect the current state of his game.
But after two days at home, Robert MacIntyre was ready to throw a Masters to forget and get right back on the horse at Harbor city.
In pro golf, there’s very little time to soak up shots you can never get back.
;)
