I want to talk about one of my favourite post-round interviews.
If I gave you a full day and unlimited guesses, I doubt you’d throw it out as a suggestion, but it comes from the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone in 2023.
To set the stage, it’s the afternoon fourball session on the opening day, and after a 4-0 whitewash in the morning, the Americans fought back in the afternoon, but long putts from Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm on the 18th managed to rescue half-points in the first two matches when it looked as though the tide was turning and after Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick soundly thumped Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele in the final match, it left only Justin Rose, Bob MacIntyre, Wyndham Clark and Max Homa out there.
If you’ve got a good memory, you’ll probably recall that for most of the back nine, Rose was fighting a lone battle and the Englishman came up trumps with a clutch putt to win the 18th and mean Europe went undefeated on day one and led by five.
And it’s this Rose and MacIntyre post-match interview that I dredge up on YouTube a few times a year.
It was MacIntyre’s first Ryder Cup, his first match, and though he hadn’t played his best, he was pretty happy with the situation. Until the 25-second-mark in the clip below…
It’s a little sadistic, I know, but the way MacIntyre’s expression changes as he realises that Rose is rubber-stamping the fact that he’d underperformed is hilarious to me. It’s like the episode of The Simpsons where Bart pauses the video recording of Lisa telling Ralph Wiggum that she only sent him a valentine card because she felt sorry for him. “If you look closely, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment his heart breaks in two,” Bart says, and I every time I watch the interview, I think of that Bart quote.
I’m sure I wasn’t alone back then in thinking that MacIntyre was probably playing in his first and last Ryder Cup. He’d qualified automatically, but only just, and he’d pushed the boat out by playing in as many events as possible.
But less than 12 months later he was a two-time PGA Tour winner – one of those wins coming in his National Open in Scotland – and a further 12 months on, he was back on the Ryder Cup team and nobody felt he didn’t belong.
He deserves enormous credit for that, for helping take down world number one Scottie Scheffler on Saturday, and for battling for the final half-point that meant that Viktor Hovland’s withdrawal and the ‘Envelope Rule’ being invoked couldn’t be used as a ‘what if?’ by the opposition. Well, couldn’t be used as more of a ‘what if?’ than it was.
But he deserves much more credit for turning up in Scotland a week later, no doubt more than a little worse for the wear after a heavy night or two of partying with his teammates, pals, and anybody willing, and going on to win the Alfred Dunhill Links at his ease in what can only be described as horrific conditions.
He could easily have gone through the motions, batted his ball around for the three days and still chalked it down as a week that he’d remember fondly regardless.
But he’s become one of the best players in the game, and they don’t become the best players in the game without being fierce competitors. A ceremonial showing wasn’t in his DNA. And he’s now got a win in his National Open and a win on the Old Course at St Andrews to show for it.
The only thing that can top those for a Scot is to win an Open Championship in Scotland, and if he keeps going the way he’s going, he’s going to have many opportunities to do so.
The next Ryder Cup is at Adare Manor in 2027, and he’ll already have that circled on his calendar, but a couple of months before, there’s an Open Championship at St Andrews…..
I look at that scheduling and I think that the player I thought would never be seen in a Ryder Cup again will probably be one of the pre-tournament favourites and that’s factoring in the additional pressure that is always piled upon a nation’s brightest star when he or she is on home turf.
I’ll still make the odd visit to YouTube to rewatch the interview with him and Rose, but now I’m starting to see it more as the moment that helped make a man rather than the moment a man’s heart broke.
Leave a comment