Bob MacIntyre bitten on Masters return as amateur urinates at Augusta National

“It kills you,” admitted the Oban man afterwards of what that had done to him mentally, costing him a double-bogey 6 after being one under to that point, in the first round of the event’s 89th edition.

Then there was the par-5 13th, possibly the most beautiful hole in golf, but, not even if he played it 100 times would MacIntyre have believed where he would be playing his second shot from on this occasion.

His drive wasn’t what he intended at all and, though actually getting a bit lucky, he was closer to the 12th green than the one he was playing to. “I tried to sneak it around the corner and I just got underneath it - a cardinal sin,” he said of that episode.

In the end, the 28-year-old had to settle for a three-over-par 75 - his second-worst score here in nine rounds. It wasn’t what he’d been looking for in his first major round of the year. “It’s not a disaster,” he admitted, “but it's not good. I actually felt I've played nicely, but I was just hitting it too far away from the hole.”

His only birdie of the day came at the par-5 second, with other spillage in addition to that double bogey coming in the shape of bogeys at the 12th, where he found the front bunker, and the 13th, having looked as though he could get out of there with a par only to three putt.

“I came here the last two times I've played it and I think I've made a hell of a lot of birdies, and today I've just played completely the opposite and been defensive and made a couple of bogeys from being on the safe side of the hole but miles away from it,” he declared. ”Just disappointed with the day.”

Having returned here as a double PGA Tour winner and sitting inside the world’s top 20, MacIntytre’s name was being mentioned before he teed off in the company of American duo Billy Horschel and Nick Dunlap in the 11th match of the day.

“The commentators have been talking about the lefty from Scotland,” declared the buggy driver taking this correspondent on the journey from the Press Building at the Georgia venue down to the drop off area close to the first tee.

In truth, the RBC Canadian Open and Genesis Scottish Open champion looked very comfortable indeed over the opening few holes only to be punched in the guts by coming up just short with his approach at the seventh and walking off with a 6 after playing a nice bunker shot.

“Actually reminded me of the momentum swing that I had when I was leading in Denmark, when I think I was two or three ahead and then I make a triple and my back is against the wall,” he said of letting a chance to win the Made in Denmark event slip from his grasp earlier in his career. “I was annoyed, but I didn't let it keep going. But it's like a shock to the system. It brings all the energy out of you.”

On a day when world No 1 and defending champion Scottie Scheffler started ominously by signing for a four-under-par 68, MacIntyre conceded there had been a “lot of good in there” and, importantly in terms of momentum heading into the second circuit, he holed a six-footer for par at 17th after racing the first one past then making a good two-putt down the slope at the last.

“Yeah, it's all right,” he said of the day’s work, which was watched by his mum and dad Dougie and Carol, as well as his two sisters, Gillian and Nicola. “Three-over par is not that rough. I've had bad scores to start before. Just gets me over a touch where I want to be.

“I had actually done the hard part in the first seven holes. My job from four to seven was to try and limit the bogeys, and I actually did the hard part. The tee shot on seven was the last piece of the jigsaw, and I then hit a lovely wedge but just pulled it.

“You think, ‘oh, I can be a bit aggressive with this putt, and I try and do that and it misses, and now you're left with a four or five-footer coming back. Then you try and dribble that one in and it moves as much as you thought the first one was going to move. It's just the way this golf course is.”

MacIntyre may have been disappointed with his score, but he fared a lot better than Dunlap. The man who won as an amateur on the PGA Tour last season then repeated the feat as a professional a few months later signed for a 90, limping home in 47.

“I've played with him a few times this year, and what a great player, what a great guy,” said MacIntyre of the young American. “To be honest, as much as he was struggling out there today, his attitude was solid. He didn't get in the way. He didn't lay off anything that was going to affect his two other playing partners because we've got a job to do. I feel for him today, but he'll come back.”

Aaron Rai, the 2020 Genesis Scottish Open champion, marked his Masters debut with a two-under 70. “Yeah, definitely beyond expectations,” admitted the Englishman of an effort that contained six birdies.

Bidding to claim a third Green Jacket in four years, Scheffler was bogey-free, holing a 62-footer for a birdie at the fourth then rolling in one from 42 feet for another 2 at the 16th.

“Anytime you can keep a card clean out here, it's a really good thing,” he said of achieving the feat in the first competitive round on the course since hundreds of trees were lost when the Augusta area suffered a direct hit from Hurricane Helene last September.

If there had been a few more trees around, it might have hid Spanish amateur Jose Louis Ballester, one of Scheffler’s playing partners, urinating into a tributary of historic Rae’s Creek as he played the 12th hole and being applauded by some patrons as he did so.

“I completely forgot that we had those restrooms to the left of the tee box,” he admitted afterwards. “I'm like, I really need to pee. Didn't really know where to go, and, since JT (the other player in the group) had an issue on the green, I'm like, I'm just going to sneak here in the river and probably people would not see me that much and then they clapped for me. It was not embarrassing at all for me. If I had to do it again, I would do it again.”