U.S. Open 2025: In the rain with Robert MacIntyre as he waited out his chance to win at Oakmont

OAKMONT, Pa. — Picture the scene, just after 4 p.m. Eastern, after the horn blew in the final round of the U.S. Open. Play suspended. Scotland's Robert MacIntyre, alone in the locker room, with an air conditioner unit pointing at his wet shirt, hoping it would dry off before they started again. He had chatted for a few minutes with his girlfriend, Shannon Hartley, and his manager Iain Stoddart, but now he kept his mind as blank as possible as the air blew. Soon he'd go through his stretching routine, and at 5:40 p.m. he'd head back to the course, pursuing the number that had echoed in his head like a mantra all weekend: even par. He had called it on Thursday, after his opening 70—"you shoot four level-par rounds, you're walking away with a medal and a trophy."

The problem now was that he was three over, and a few holes behind him, Sam Burns, though he had staggered still had him by five shots at two under. And it wasn't just their story, either, because there were five others between them. But he still believed, as he stretched in the locker room, although his belief at that point was something abstract, not yet clarified.

And then the horn blew again, and he began to play the most beautiful golf of the afternoon. The rain beat down, the fairways pooled with water, Oakmont threw everything it had at him, but there was something pure in his game now, and it couldn't be derailed. Tap-in par on 11. Tap-in par on 12. Easy par on 13. An eight-footer on 14 for birdie. A massive par save from the same distance on 15. Another green, another par on 16. A beautiful drive on 17, and an up-and-down from 68 feet for another birdie. On the last, a hole which would yield just four birdies all day, he gave himself a prayer for that promised number, even par—a 32-footer from the left side. He had the line, so it seemed, but not the distance ... but who could make a birdie from over there anyway?

He didn't know it as he converted the par, but all around him, the competition was imploding. Sam Burns was about to make a dream-killing double on 15; Tyrrell Hatton would finish bogey-bogey to miss his chance; Viktor Hovland made just one big mistake on the back nine, but it kept him just this side of threatening. It looked from the outside like chaos unfolding, but the truth is that a muddy outcome was crystallizing. Within moments of that par on 18, it seemed like all of his competitors had run themselves out of the game, with one exception. And even if Robert MacIntyre didn't know the shape of how the puzzle was coming together, the way he pumped his fist when the short putt on the final green spoke to an instinctual sense that he'd done something incredible.

He knew it in his heart. What he didn't know is, would he win?

• • •

After the 18th green, the players walk over a footbridge and onto a small walkway that leads them to the scoring building. Add the numbers, sign the cards, and then they emerge onto a patio where journalists and cameramen and agents and wives and USGA officials hang around. If they want to escape, there are lighted steps up to the clubhouse, and we were warned that with a potential playoff looming, MacIntyre would likely take shelter there, away from prying eyes.

He didn't. He spoke with Sky Sports first, and then the officials led him over the wet stones to the flash area, a far corner with a few cameras in front of a scrim decked with USGA logos where the players field questions from everyone not with a major TV player. The PGA Tour's Will Gray, in the scrum, told us that Spaun was now -140 to win, which he translated as around a 60 percent chance. The sky seemed to grow grayer by the minute, the trees sagged under the weight of wet leaves, and just before he walked over to us, J.J. Spaun hit a spectacular drive that settled 17 feet from the hole on 17, where he'd putt for eagle. It was the first negative development for MacIntyre in what felt like and eternity, but was more like 15 minutes—the first sign that there might be one player who wouldn't succumb to the tidal wave of momentum that seemed to be cresting for MacIntyre just then ... and that the player who stood up to it might be the most unlikely.

When he arrived at flash, the vibe turned surreal—we were watching him watch the TV just beyond the camera, where his immediate fate would play out beyond his control. I didn't know any other solution beyond pointing out this strangeness, and I wondered how he found it.

"It feels great," he said, proving his words with a smile. "I've got a chance to win a major championship. It's what I've dreamed of as a kid, sitting back home watching all the majors. Yeah, it feels unbelievable, but again, I might have some work to do."

He fielded our questions affably, with a serenity that seemed outrageous for the moment. He had first felt he might win when he saw the leaders at even on 14; his focus after the restart was getting back in the groove he'd established with the birdie on 9; no, the weather didn't remind him of Scotland, and in fact he would have been inside with this kind of rain since the Tour had turned into a fair-weather golfer.

There's a certain stance professional golfers use when they're being interviewed: one leg thrust out, hands on hips, leaning slightly forward. MacIntyre copied it almost to a tee, but with one difference—his hands were positioned higher, like he was hugging his own ribs through the black floral Nike shirt. He's 28 now, but still has a young, round face accented by the tufts of hair that spill out the side of his hat, and the effect is one of boyishness. But then he speaks, and the voice presents a contradiction; low and lulling, soft but authoritative, almost poetic in the Sam Torrance mold. You feel something paradoxical as you watch and listen, but finally you settle on confidence over innocence."

"Did anyone say anything that encouraged you?" a reporter asked.

"Not one thing. I'm a guy that believes."

As he walked away, I asked where he would watch the rest.

"I might not," he joked.

• • •

But he did. First with Cara Banks, on a raised platform where he waited for a short hit with NBC. That's where he saw Spaun lag his eagle putt to three feet and convert the birdie. Spaun would take a one-shot lead over MacIntyre into 18, but 18 was a beast, and there was every chance for a bogey to force a two-hole playoff. There might even be time—the USGA's Jonathan Coe, a beacon of calm in the unfolding chaos on the patio, said they expected the last putt around 8:15.

MacIntyre was admirably straight-faced viewed from below. He laughed with Banks, and when it was time for his hit on NBC, she said, "I'm with a very interested spectator." he spoke for a few seconds, and then he walked down the stairs from the platform, met up with Stoddart again, called for his girlfriend to come down from the clubhouse porch, and walked with them back down to scoring, where he could watch the finish on TV. Somewhere in the midst of these movements, Spaun drove his ball 308 yards down the center of the fairway on 18.

We knew it, but he didn't, as he went inside the door and left us behind. Again, the overriding sense was that something special had now been halted—as well as Spaun had putted, an errant drive might have been the last chance. What a shame, I thought. What a story this would have been, out of nowhere.

And then we crossed the footbridge to the 18th green, and the scene that presented itself couldn't help hit you in the gut. In the distance, about to take his swing, Spaun was a dark speck. The air had cooled, and the sky was in the stage they might call the gloaming where MacIntyre is from—that romantic deep gray just before dark. That would have been plenty, but the author had gone a step further, and a layer of gray fog had settled over the mountains to the north, leaving them as faint green impressions. And it was through that mist that Spaun hit his shot to the left side of the green, 64 feet away, and viewed from above it was achingly beautiful.

And then we crossed the bridge, walked to the rope behind the green, and settled in the wet grass for the most electric finish I've ever seen on a golf course.

• • •

MacIntyre entered the scene again just after Mark Carens, J.J. Spaun's caddie, found a friend by the footbridge, and in the midst of his ecstasy shouted "Dude, are you f***ing serious? What the f*** just happened!" Spaun was ahead of him, holding his daughter and carried along by the currents, and when he reached scoring, MacIntyre was there to congratulate him.

Moments earlier, on TV, he watched the putt go down, and whatever he was feeling inside, he clapped in a way that looked genuinely appreciative of Spaun's feat. Then he mouthed the word "wow!" and shrugged his shoulders, which is about all you can do when, in the blink of an eye, the golf gods have smiled on someone so completely.

It can feel rote or even corny to praise the dignity of a loser, but in moments like these, when everything is so personal and so fraught, there is something quietly moving about that sort of composure—the awareness, and the pain tolerance, it takes to stand tall and go through the rituals that must ache but that, in the heightened atmosphere, feel so meaningful. (It might be unkind to draw a comparison to Pinehurst, a year ago, but the mind wanders... ) And even if it's drowned out in Spaun's courageous finish, MacIntyre earned his respect on Sunday.

He didn't leave immediately. He lingered with his agent, answered a few more questions by the fence, and was standing nearby when Jon Rahm found Tyrrell Hatton, embraced him, and consoled him: "you're due for something soon."

A few minutes later, MacIntyre left for good. Up the lighted stairway, into the clubhouse, where he will contemplate one of the strange dramas professional golf can summon on days like these—when something sacred is in your grasp, sudden and unexpected, and then, through no fault of your own, is taken away.