Robert MacIntyre had a week to forget at the 2026 Masters.
The 29-year-old Scotsman arrived in good form, following a T2 at the Valero Texas Open and a fourth-place finish at the Players Championship. But MacIntyre’s week at Augusta National unraveled quickly during the opening round, where he made quadruple-bogey nine on the par-5 15th en route to a first-round 80. Cameras caught MacIntyre flipping off the 15th green after putting two balls in the water, and he was reportedly reprimanded by Augusta National for the gesture. MacIntyre skipped media after both 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 Heritage, MacIntyre spoke with Sky Sports’ Nick Dougherty about his turbulent few days at Augusta National.
“I know what I did isn’t the best way of me doing things,” MacIntyre said. “But look, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m trying my best to control the emotions. I work with someone back home. And yeah, there was a lot going on, and I’m disappointed with that, but I’m very good at putting things behind me. Things that get said elsewhere, it doesn’t faze me. I’ve got my family, friends, part of my team — these guys are the ones that I really listen to. And if I’ve done something wrong, they tell me.
“And that’s how I go about life. I just do what I want, how we want, not just personally but with family and friends. And we go about 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 perform 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 flushes bad weeks by “going mental” for a bit. That allows him to reset quickly and move on.
“I can go as mental as I want for an hour and then after that, just back to life,” MacIntyre said at Royal Portrush ahead of the 2025 Open Championship. “I can do whatever I want for an hour. Just anything I want. You can break things. You can literally do whatever I want for an hour. After that hour is gone, my job’s done. For an hour and a half before my round, two hours before my round, I’m preparing, so nobody gets in my way. It’s warmup, stretching, gym work, all of that. So there’s a five-, six-, seven-, eight-hour window that I’m working.
“If you have a bad day at work, you’re going to be annoyed. It happens more often than not for me as well,” MacIntyre said then, laughing. “It’s just about once that’s gone, it’s been difficult in the past for me to reset, but nowadays, there’s so many golf tournaments and you don’t know what’s coming the 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 spinning. A tournament ends, you win or lose, and then it’s quickly onto the next one. It’s important to be able to quickly hit the reset button. Let the steam out and get ready to go again.
But the emotions are also what make Robert MacIntyre who he is. To stamp out all of his fire would be to take away part of the soul of his game. It’s a tightrope he has to walk — sometimes he traverses it cleanly and sometimes he falls.
“I’m fiery on the golf course when I’m in tournament rounds,” MacIntyre said at the Open. “I’ll drop, I was going to say the odd, but a few bad words in there. I’ll hit the bag. I’ll say some harsh things, but that’s what gets me going. If I walk around and I’m all happy I just made a double bogey or people are clapping, thanks very much, that’s not me. I’m needing to smash something up. I want to rip a glove. I do something to get that anger out. It’s better out than in for me. Some people it’s better holding it, but for me it’s get it out and then just do not let it affect the next shot. Simple.”
The poor week at the Masters was frustrating. After a runner-up finish at last year’s U.S. Open and a weekend of contention at this year’s Players, MacIntyre is more confident than ever that he’s made of the right stuff to win major championships. He left Augusta National disappointed in a showing that didn’t reflect the current state of his game.
But after two days at home, Robert MacIntyre was ready to flush a Masters to forget and get right back on the horse at Harbour Town.
In pro golf, there’s very little time to stew over shots you can never get back.
