Robert MacIntyre slams famous St. Andrews golf hole: ‘Blow it up’

Scotsman Robert MacIntyre is never afraid to speak his mind, and his latest rant further proves that point.

After finishing tied for 25th at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, which Tyrrell Hatton won for the third time, MacIntyre walked off the course and immediately closed the penultimate hole of the Old Course, the famous par-4 17th.

“Blow it up,” MacIntyre told The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster after his round on Sunday.

“I don’t think there are many worse holes in golf.”

The 17th is known as ‘The Road Hole’ and offers a tee shot like no other in the world. You have to hit a cut over the corner of the St. Andrews hotel, which makes the tee shot on this dogleg right completely blind. Out-of-bounds therefore looms on the right side, always sending bursts of fear through a player’s mind. But the approach does not get any easier for this colossus of 495 meters. The putting surface is paper thin and is protected by a central, infamous bunker where it is almost impossible to get up and down. Beyond the greenery is a road that gives the hole its name and just beyond the sidewalk is an ancient wall. Sometimes players have no choice but to take chip shots off the stone in an attempt to get it back onto the green. They are often unsuccessful.

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

For these reasons, birdies are rare.

‘I think it’s a terrible hole from the back tee. It doesn’t need to be modernized, to bring excitement it needs to be a hole you can hit a golf shot into and not a hole where you just hit it on the green and try to get up and down,” MacIntyre explained.

“It plays almost like a par-5. They are trying to do things to this golf course that are not necessary. (On Sunday) I made a drive off the tee and then a 4-iron and I was furthest on the hole.

MacIntyre has plenty of reason to be furious about this hole. During Saturday’s third round, he hit a double-bogey six after his approach landed short of the green and just short of the Road Hole Bunker. He failed to get up and down to save bogey, let alone par. Despite this, he still shot a 7-under 65, but didn’t come close to that number in his final round on Sunday. MacIntyre could only manage a 2-under 70, not a bad score considering the blustery conditions, but not nearly as good as the round he delivered on Saturday. Still, MacIntyre was able to post a better score on the 17th hole on Sunday, although he still dropped a shot and suffered a bogey-five. He missed the green short again and was no longer able to go up and down.

Still, his top 25 finish at the Dunhill Links does not detract from his Race to Dubai ranking, the DP World Tour’s equivalent of the FedEx Cup. MacIntyre still holds sixth spot in the standings and is locked into the final two events of the year on the DP World Tour in the Middle East.

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Make sure you check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko also.