A brilliant last hole birdie handed super Scot Robert MacIntyre an automatic invitation (not the word invite) into next year’s Masters.
MacIntyre holed a 13-footer in a closing round 72 for a two-under par on his Masters debut at Augusta National.
The 24-year-old’s finish is the best ‘first time’ finish of any 27 prior Scots on their Masters debut since Willie MacFarlane was sixth in the inaugural 1934 Masters and also MacDonald Smith was a shot back sharing seventh place in that first Masters.
“I was a little disappointed with my finish but the birdie at the last might have got me back for next year so I have to take the positives from this week,” he said.
“I played great for my first time here and trying to manage my way around a golf course I had never seen before.
“I had only ever played it on computer games with my pals. It’s compleely different being here in the battle.
“I learned again that I can compete. Match play is a different beats because it’s one against one and you don’t know how the other guy is going to do. He might play poor and you beat him.
“But I am playing against the best guys in the world now.
Playing in Europe is slightly different. You are not seeing these courses week in, week out.
“I feel if I’d known this golf course better I might have been up there competing.
“But I am happy enough with how I played.”
The Oban lefty went into the last round of his first Masters sharing 10th place and with a top-12 assuring him of an automatic invitation (not invite) into the 2022 Masters.
However, MacIntyre was off to a bogey start in finding a left greenside bunker and then two-putting from six-feet.
MacIntyre steadied with four straight pars before the bitter disappointment of missing the green back right at the par-3 sixth and after chipping to some 40-feet he then took three putts in a double-bogey ‘6’.
The young Scot was not about to throw in the towel brilliantly bouncing back to regain the lost shots with birdies of three-feet at both the eighth and ninth holes.
At the ninth, MacIntyre had launched a 350-yard missile that split the fairway and then sent his 95-yard second to three-feet.
He dropped a fourth shot of his round at 12 but as MacIntyre has done for much of the four days, the Scot bounced straight back with a birdie at the next, and this time draining yet another three-footer at the par-5 13th.
MacIntyre snatched a fourth birdie from a greenside birdie at the par-5 15th that then put himself just outside the top-12 only to drop shots at 16 and 17.
But MacIntyre was not done in landing his penultimate shot to 13-feet and holing the birdie putt that put him into a then five-way share of 12th place
QUOTES TO COME
