I could have curled up in a ball and cried, says Bob MacIntyre of his stress in 150th Open

He’d just extended his run of making cuts in majors to ten in a row after digging deep over the closing few holes on the Old Course at St Andrews on Friday, but Bob MacIntyre was neither bothered about celebrating the feat or in a state to do so.

Speaking after he’d carded a third-round 69 to make a little jump in the leaderboard in the 150th Open, the Oban man said: “I mean, last night I was sitting at the dinner table just slouched, didn't know what to do. I was trying to eat, but I was done. I could have curled up in a ball when I finished and cried.”

Though delighted to be around for the weekend again in one of the game’s showpiece events, having developed a knack of making major cuts since playing in his first one in this tournament in 2019, MacIntyre had been drained by the opening two days on this occasion.

With three holes to play in the second circuit, the 25-year-old stood on level par, which had been the projected cut mark for most of the day, and found himself having to save testing par putts on both the 16th and 17th to avoid a first early exit.

“Yesterday was big for me,” admitted MacIntyre. “I've never been that stressed on a golf course in my life. With seven holes to go, I don't know what was going on. Had to turn away from the actual fairway on 16 because there was too much going on. Fan support is absolutely brilliant, but I was feeling it.

“You're not letting people down, but you know how much it means. There's so many people supporting me, and it means so much to me that I wasn't going to let them down because I was having a hard time, but I was trying almost too hard.

“Then the two putts on 16 and 17 yesterday, I just gave up. I was like, ‘great, I gotta have these putts, and if they go in, they go