Robert MacIntyre slams well-known St. Andrews golf gap: ‘Blow it up’

Scotsman Robert MacIntyre is rarely afraid to voice his opinion, and his newest tirade proves that time additional.

After tying for twenty fifth on the Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks Championship, which Tyrrell Hatton received for a file third time, MacIntyre walked off the course and instantly slammed the Outdated Course’s penultimate gap, the well-known par-4 seventeenth.

“Blow it up,” MacIntyre informed Martin Dempster of The Scotsman after his spherical on Sunday.

“I don’t suppose there are lots of worse holes in world golf.”

Referred to as ‘The Highway Gap,’ the seventeenth incorporates a tee shot like no different on the planet. You have to hit a minimize over the nook of the St. Andrews lodge, making the tee shot on this dogleg proper fully blind. Out-of-bounds, due to this fact, looms down the correct aspect, which at all times shoots bursts of tension by a participant’s thoughts. However the strategy doesn’t get any simpler on this 495-yard behemoth. The placing floor is pencil-thin, protected by a central, notorious bunker that’s practically not possible to get up-and-down out of. Past the inexperienced lies a highway that provides the outlet its identify and simply previous the pavement sits a centuries-old wall. Generally, gamers haven’t any selection however to richoceht chip photographs off the stone in an try to get it again onto the inexperienced. They’re typically unsuccessful.

Photograph by Harry How/Getty Photographs

For these causes, birdies are sparse.

“I believe it’s a horrible gap off the again tee. It doesn’t have to be modernized, to deliver pleasure it must be a gap you’ll be able to hit a golf shot into and never one the place you simply hit it onto the inexperienced and attempt to stand up and down,” MacIntyre defined.

“It nearly performs like a par-5. They attempt to do issues to this golf course that don’t have to be executed. [On Sunday,] I rifled a drive off the tee after which a 4-iron and I used to be the furthest up the outlet.”

MacIntyre has loads of motive to be livid with this gap. Throughout Saturday’s third spherical, he made a double-bogey six after his strategy landed in need of the inexperienced and in need of the Highway Gap Bunker. He didn’t get up-and-down to avoid wasting bogey, not to mention par. Regardless of that, he nonetheless shot a 7-under 65, however he didn’t come near carding that quantity throughout his remaining spherical on Sunday. MacIntyre might solely summon a 2-under 70, not a nasty rating given the blustery situations, however nowhere close to nearly as good because the spherical he turned in on Saturday. But, MacIntyre managed to put up a greater rating on the seventeenth gap on Sunday, though he nonetheless dropped a shot, carding a bogey-five. He missed the inexperienced quick once more, failing to get up-and-down as soon as extra.

Nonetheless, his top-25 end on the Dunhill Hyperlinks does nothing to his Race to Dubai rating, the DP World Tour’s equal of the FedEx Cup. MacIntyre nonetheless holds on to the sixth spot within the standings and is locked into the ultimate two occasions of the yr on the DP World Tour within the Center East.

Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Taking part in Via. Be sure you take a look at @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You possibly can comply with him on Twitter @jack_milko as nicely.