Robert MacIntyre couldn’t have asked for a better three-hole finish at the DP World Tour’s big-money BMW PGA Championship on Sunday. Birdie. Birdie. Eagle. The four-under blitz at Wentworth moved MacIntyre to three under for his round and 13 under for the week, good for a share of 10th place. Still, after signing his card, the combustible Scotsman wasn’t exactly all sunshine and rainbows.
MacIntyre, who is ranked 19th in the world, was still stewing from what he described as a “ridiculous” ruling on the 11th, a par-4 on which his drive had found the left-center of the fairway. When MacIntyre arrived at his ball, he found it plugged — or at least semi-plugged — in another player’s pitch mark. The good news for MacIntyre was that a 2026 rule change seemingly meant that he’d be afforded relief for his submerged ball. The bad news: Model Local Rule F-2 includes an exception: If a referee determines that the pitch mark has been repaired in some way, the player will not receive relief.
The rule goes on, “A pitch mark has been repaired in some way when it has been pressed down or undergone any form of repair by anyone whether deliberate or incidental, and regardless of the quality or completeness of the repair. Examples of repaired in some way include when a pitch-mark has been pressed down with a club or foot, anyone has attempted to repair it with a tee or some other device, or when the pitch-mark is in an area over which a mower has passed or has been otherwise prepared by maintenance staff. A pitch-mark that has been repaired in some way can and will often result in a visible indentation from which there is no relief under this Local Rule.”
In MacIntyre’s case, an official assessed the lie and determined that the mark had been repaired. Ergo, no free relief. “It was in our opinion a partly-repaired pitchmark,” DP World Tour chief referee Mark Litton later toldThe Scotsman.
MacIntyre was out of luck but not short on exasperation.
“What is the point of changing the rules for a plugged ball when I have split the fairway on 11?” he told The Scotsman. “The ball has pitched in a pitch mark but, because the pitch mark has been deemed to have been stood on, cut or whatever it was, I didn’t get relief.
He added: “I even got a second opinion. But, because the sides of the pitch mark weren’t standing up and it looked as though someone had stood on it or a buggy had gone over it. I didn’t get relief.
“The rule is absolutely ridiculous. It is all down to a referee’s decision. It looked as though it was plugged and that pitch mark could have happened this morning.”
From his bad-luck lie 96 yards from the green, MacIntyre airmailed his approach into the rough, left his first chip attempt in the long grass and then needed two more shots to hole out for what was his second consecutive bogey on the inward nine. On the ensuing hole, the par-5 12th — a hole he’d eagled and birdied earlier in the week — MacIntyre made another bogey to drop to one over for his round.
Of his misfortune at 11, MacIntyre later said he “just lost the plot from there. Yeah, I know that my attitude really, really needs to improve, but I am absolutely fizzing with the ruling.”
The governing bodies are constantly seeking ways to streamline the rules and eliminate confusion, complication and gray areas. In the case of embedded balls, MacIntyre said there is still more policy work to be done.
“They need to simplify the rules,” he told The Scotsman. “If it is in a plug mark, it’s in a plug mark.”
