Another top 10 finish for Bob
Bob MacIntyre continued his recent good form with a tie for seventh place in the Korea Championship in cold and blustery Incheon, South Korea, on Sunday.
A level par final round of 72 was not quite enough to see the Oban star over the line in a tournament won by Spain’s Pablo Larrazabal, who finished in fine style with four birdies over the closing eight holes.
While there will no doubt be a sense of disappointment in Bob’s camp that he was unable to translate his overnight lead on Saturday into a victory, there were a huge number of positives to take from his performance in the Far East.
Firstly, it was the left hander’s third consecutive top 10 finish on the DP World Tour, secondly with only one week to go before the field is finalised for the USPGA championship it keeps him inside the qualification spots for the second major of the year, and finally it sets him up beautifully for the defence of his Italian Open title beginning in Rome this week.
After opening with a solid round of 69 on Thursday, the Oban man found himself right in contention from the word go on the challenging Jack Nicklaus designed course. He followed that on Friday with a 70 to sit on five under par going into the weekend, despite admitting that: “I wasn’t in the best form today mood-wise. I must have got out of the wrong side of the bed today”.
If his mood wasn’t great on Friday, it certainly improved on Saturday where, in treacherous, windy conditions he put on a short game masterclass on his way to an incredible round of 69 that left him on top of the leaderboard going into the final round.
Speaking afterwards, he couldn’t hide his delight at his performance on day three, saying: “It was brilliant to be honest…I surprised myself with some of the shots,” adding “overall it was a really good round of golf”.
His assessment was shared by the Sky TV commentators who were positively purring about his touch around the greens describing it as “Sevelike”. Compliments don’t come much higher than that.
After his brilliance on Saturday Bob found himself out in the final group alongside Larrazabal and fellow countryman Scott Jamieson on Sunday hoping to get off to a fast start.
Unfortunately the opposite was true as he opened with bogeys on the first two holes. Testing his newly implemented mental approach to the limit, he battled back admirably to go to the turn in level par and stay in contention just one shot off the lead.
Unfortunately, despite more short game heroics, his approach play just wasn’t at his