Bob MacIntyre beats Fitzpatrick in Italian Open playoff as McIlroy finishes fourth

A season of more downs than ups for Bob MacIntyre finally brought a true high, with the 26-year-old Scotsman’s second career win on the DP World Cup Tour coming in emphatic style with a play-off win over US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick at the first hole of sudden-death in the Italian Open at Marco Simone Golf Club on the outskirts of Rome.

In his sense of timing and also the whereabouts of the win, MacIntyre threw down a statement of intent for the direction his career path is headed: the victory came at the host venue for next year’s Ryder Cup match and the big-hitting left-hander left nobody in any doubt that making Luke Donald’s Europe team for that encounter with the United States is at the top of his priority list.

“It’s my main goal, my only goal for the next year. I’ve (won) on the golf course,” said MacIntyre, who finished with a 64 for a total of 14-under-par 270, of a win that gave him a pay-day of €510,000 and set to move him from 110th in the world rankings up to 70th and moving in the right direction of a career path that once had him with a career-best 42nd position.

MacIntyre’s win came with a birdie on the Par 5 18th in the first hole of a sudden death with Fitzpatrick, but Rory McIlroy — who’d held the 36-hole lead and started the final round just one shot behind Fitzpatrick — was left to rue a couple of loose shots that ultimately saw the Northern Irishman finish in solo fourth place, two strokes outside the play-off.

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McIlroy put himself on the back foot in his quest for victory with a double-bogey on the first hole where he pushed his tee shot right and then found heavy greenside rough with his approach. He chipped on to the green with his third but then three-putted from 50 feet for a six on the Par 4 first hole.

Although McIlroy played his way back up the leader board with a string of birdies — on the fifth, ninth, 12th, 13th and 15th holes — to get back into the business, his chances effectively disappeared on the drivable Par 4 16th hole. His tee-shot leaked right and splashed into the lake and in doing so ran up a bogey on a hole which played among the easiest of the tournament.

McIlroy remains atop the Race to Dubai order of merit and is next due to play in the Alfred Dunhill Links in Scotland on September 29th-October 2nd.

MacIntyre, too, will be in the Dunhill Links and will play on home turf with an extra pep to his step after a win that transformed his season and provided vindication for a change of coach in recent months.

Without a top-10 finish anywhere dating back to the Ras Al Khaimah in February, and with four missed cuts in nine events before Rome, MacIntyre — with a new hybrid in his bag this week — produced an outstanding front nine of 29 which featured six birdies and no dropped shots to play his way into the mix. The homeward run was more turbulent with four birdies and three bogeys but the last of those birdies on the 18th would enable him to sign for a 64 to set the clubhouse target.

As it happened, only Fitzpatrick — with a birdie on the 18th for a homeward run of 32 in a final round 67 — matched him. And so the two set off for a playoff that again brought them back to the Par 5 18th: MacIntyre hit a perfect drive, measuring 358 yards, to the middle of the fairway; but Fitzpatrick was distracted by a trigger-happy cameraman on his back swing and pulled his drive into left rough from where his approach then found heavy rough to the right of the green. Fitzpatrick’s two-putt birdie four after finding the green with his approach was sufficient to give him a second European Tour win and harbour serious ambitions of making next year’s Ryder Cup team.

“This means everything,” said MacIntyre, adding: “I was down and out two or three months ago. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know where to go. But I spoke to the right people and there’s so much hard work gone into this, my caddie, family, friends, absolutely everyone, (moving coaches to) Scott (Forsythe), a few weeks ago. My approach play has just gone up a notch and it’s shown today.”