Needing something special to advance, Robert MacIntyre drives 18th green to 3 feet

AUSTIN, Texas – Robert MacIntyre spent the entire day playing catch up in his match against Adam Long at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and by the turn, the pressure seemed to have caught up to him.

“I was 3 down through 9, and [his caddie] gave me a shake on the 10th tee, like, Come on, we’ve got to keep fighting here,” MacIntyre said. “That’s something that I normally always have inside me, but my head was down through 9 and I didn’t know where to go, but we just kept giving ourselves chances.”

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It was his final chance that will go into WGC-Match Play lore. Trailing by one hole, MacIntyre knew his only chance to advance to the Sweet 16 was a halve at the last and that would require something special on the 371-yard par 4.

“For me, if I hit my normal shot I fly the slope, hits flat, doesn’t go on the green. I had to hit a low one. I had to get it flighted, but my miss with that flighted shot is in the hazard left,” he said. “But I was 1 down, I had to win the hole, so I thought, here we go. Let’s get the low one going.”

MacIntyre’s drive came off perfect, skipped across the slope and raced up the hill in front of the green before stopping 3 feet from the hole just as Dustin Johnson, playing in the group ahead, was preparing to putt. The walk-off eagle secured the Scot a fourth-round match against Ian Poulter.

“I had probably one of the best and one of the luckiest golf shots I’ve hit in my life,” MacIntyre laughed.