‘Wear my heart on my sleeve:' Robert MacIntyre discusses his Masters meltdown

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.”

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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.

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