‘I thought I’d lost Ryder Cup for Team Europe’ – MacIntyre

Bob MacIntyre admits his shinty experience helped steady him as he thought he was about to lose the Ryder Cup for Team Europe last month.

It had looked like Europe would thump Team USA in New York, but the hosts fought back strongly on the final day, before the visitors finally secured the win through Tyrell Hatton’s point.

MacIntyre was last out for the Europeans and as the day wore on, it looked increasingly likely the Cup could come down to the last match.

“It was horrible,” the world number eight told BBC Radio Scotland’s The Saturday Show. “There’s no vice captains, there’s nobody walking with you apart from your family, friends, your partners.

“You feel as though it’s you and your caddy against America. When I teed off, I thought ‘this is going to be over by the time I get to the eighth’, there was so much blue on the board.

“I got to eight or nine, and the main difference is just it’s very even, but there’s more red now. The matches going down the 18th kept flipping to red and I thought ‘this is tight now’. It felt like ‘this could come down to your match’.

“I missed the putt on the 15th and I honestly thought ‘I’m going to lose the Ryder Cup for us’.

“I did the exact same thing in Rome, missed a putt on 14 and thought the exact same thing – I’ve lost the Ryder Cup.”

However, MacIntyre was able to rely on a mindset learned from the game he grew up playing back in Oban – shinty.

“I just thought ‘what would I do in a game of shinty when they score a goal in the 80th minute to go 1-0 up?’,” he said.

“You can’t just put your head down and give up. You’ve still got 10 minutes to come back, same in football.”