Robert MacIntyre flips middle finger towards Masters green

Robert MacIntyre let his frustrations out on Thursday at the Masters. Hector Vivas / Getty Images Share full article2AUGUSTA, Ga. — This was supposed to be one of the easier holes on the course. No. 15? That’s usually the second-lowest scoring at Augusta National. Par five, 550 yards. Downhill approach. Easy? Of course not. Nothing at Augusta National Golf Club is. But this is a scoring hole. So why was Robert MacIntyre giving the bird to the 15th green on Thursday? Because Augusta National was hard. Firm and fast. A Masters week without any weather concerns, a rarity in recent years. And the grounds crew is letting it bake. Drives are going further, sure, but balls are bouncing off greens. Good luck controlling your spin. Which provides a sneaky beauty: Players are close enough to go for the green, but landing a long club is nearly impossible. “The greens are like concrete,” Fred Couples said. “The course was really, really good.” MacIntyre held up the middle finger after hitting his second shot into the water in front of 15 green. But that wasn’t even the worst part. When he hit a shorter drop from 81 yards out on the downhill slope, he overspun his pitch and rolled it back into the water again. Then, he dropped in the same spot, and this time it bounced off the back of the green for an 18-yard pitch. He finished the day shooting an 8-over 80, and is tied for 82nd after Day 1. The Masters takes its code of conduct quite seriously and MacIntyre could be subject to some kind of punishment, though it’s likely not to be made public. MacIntyre did not speak to the media after his round on Thursday. He wasn’t the lone quadruple we saw. Couples entered the 15th hole 2-under. From a similar spot on the downslope, he hit two more in the water to drop to 2-over. Or there was Patrick Reed, near the lead at the time, who bounced an approach so hard off the green it went into the water by 16. He bogeyed. “You fly it a little far, goes over the green. Fly it a little short, you come up short and the chipping is hard. For the really good players I think they want it like this. I know the Jon Rahms and Schefflers and Spieths and Rorys,” Couples said. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Brody Miller covers golf and the LSU Tigers for The Athletic. He came to The Athletic from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A South Jersey native, Miller graduated from Indiana University before going on to stops at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Indianapolis Star, the Clarion Ledger and NOLA.com. Follow Brody on Twitter @BrodyAMiller