‘I Was Pissed Off’: PGA Tour Pro Erupts at Rules Official’s After Costly USGA Blunder

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According to a report from Martin Dempster of The Scotsman, Bob MacIntyre approached a rules official during the final round, and the conversation, while not heated, was pointed enough that it was clear something had irritated him.

The discussion traced back to the par-3 11th, where MacIntyre and playing partner Chris Gotterup had each landed tee shots short of the hole, only to watch them finish well beyond it down the back slope. MacIntyre later admitted exactly what had been going through his mind in that moment.

“Yeah, it was a rules official I spoke to just to ask him. I said to him, ‘Look, at The Open Championship, they tell you how much firmer the golf course has gotten. Here, they told us they were going to syringe the greens the first two days, MacIntyre said.

“I mean, most weeks you don’t know how firm it is, but these golf courses can change in an absolute heartbeat. For instance, I hit an 8-iron into the 17th hole, coming down out of the left, and it stopped within two yards. I’ve hit a 9-iron into 11, and it’s bounced twice on the green and gone over the green. I mean, it’s only getting firmer on that 11th green.

“Yeah, I was pissed off and thought I was going to go and ask the question. I don’t normally do that, but I just thought, ‘You know what? I am going to ask him why.’ He just gave me the answer I thought I was going to get, to be honest. But I was kind of venting a little bit.”

He was pretty frustrated with how unpredictable the greens were playing. Gotterup hit a tee shot on 11 that took one bounce and just rolled off the back, but when he tried his own approach, it bounced twice and shot right over the green. And just a few holes before that, he saw Joaquin Niemann’s ball actually spin back off the front of the second green. Talk about tough conditions.

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“Come on!”

Bob MacIntyre vents at US Open official over issue in final round at Shinnecock Hills@ScotsmanSport @TheScotsman @robert1lefty @usopengolf https://t.co/NPLF96xQv0 pic.twitter.com/TyfmFnYIZb

— Martin Dempster (@DempsterMartin) June 21, 2026

Wind was the USGA’s central concern entering the week, so they decided to play it safe and slow things down instead of risking another setup mess. Greens were rolling way slower than last year at Oakmont, sitting around 10 to 10.5 on the Stimpmeter. The crew even broke out the hoses for a little syringing, which is basically just giving the greens a quick mist between groups to keep them healthy.

This was not MacIntyre’s first run-in with the setup. After a third-round 73 on Saturday, he had already aimed at the pin placements, specifically the 11th.

“Some of the pin positions are, to be honest, a bit ridiculous. The one on 11 is only a pin position if it is flat calm,” he had said.

The wind that day blew close to 30 miles per hour, conditions he felt had crossed into difficult territory beyond the norm. Brooks Koepka, the 2018 champion at this same venue, had separately remarked that the greens felt unusually soft.

That challenge is precisely why the transition from a tense, frustrated MacIntyre to the wider question of how this golf course gets prepared matters so much this week.

The 11th hole alone illustrates the stakes, its tiny 4,280-square-foot green sitting at the highest, most exposed point on the entire property. Long Island’s coastal winds are a daily fact of life here, and that exposure is why the USGA chose a more conservative setup in 2026 than it had in either 2004 or 2018.

Shinnecock’s greens are built from Poa annua grass on sandy coastal soil, a combination that dries out quickly and keeps moisture management a constant concern for the people maintaining the course. The daily winds on Long Island add to the challenge.

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