'Authentic' Bob MacIntyre praised by physio who got him pain-free for PGA Tour finale

Bob MacIntyre was in “absolute agony and walking as though he had poker up his a***” a few days before being able to tee up in last week’s Tour Championship then, subsequently, finishing his first full season on the PGA Tour with a storming last-day performance in Atlanta.

The Oban man, a two-time winner earlier in the year, feared he was set to miss out on a debut appearance in the US circuit’s big-money season finale at East Lake after being forced to withdraw during the third round of the previous week’s BMW Championship in Denver due to a lower left back injury.

But, thanks to Fife-based physiotherapist Stuart Barton answering his management team’s SoS call by flying out to the US at short notice, MacIntyre not only made it to the first tee but played pain-free as he rounded off his campaign by following three solid rounds with a closing seven-under-par 64 to finish in a tie for 17th behind world No 1 Scottie Scheffler in the 30-man field.

Before being forced to withdraw, Bob MacIntyre holds his back in discomfort during the third round of the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado. Picture: Harry How/Getty Images.

Speaking exclusively to The Scotsman about his whirlwind week after arriving home, Barton, who has been a physiotherapist for more than 30 years and is widely regarded as being one of the best in the business, said: “I’m part of Anstruther and District Musical Society and, ahead of us doing a production of Rock Of Ages later in the year, we were having a social get-together a week past Saturday when I got a phone call from Stoddy (Iain Stoddart, MacIntyre’s manager).

“It was to tell me about Bob injuring his back and, as a result of ‘ask Barty' having apparently been the first thing he said, which I was chuffed about, to see if I could come out to America. Having had a couple of beers, I kind of dropped my guard, I suppose, and said ‘aye, of course’ (laughing).

"Anyway, I flew out the next day to Atlanta and met Bob and Stoddy at an airport hotel, which had a pool, so we were straight in it and a good thing as well was that the place where Mike Burrow, Bob’s caddie, was staying for the week also had a pool. To be honest, when I got out there he was in absolute agony and couldn’t straighten up. He got relief when he was on all fours and it was the classic walking as though he had a poker up his a***.”

MacIntyre admitted later in the week in Georgia that “I didn’t think I’d be pitching up here” and, referring to Barton in particular, said it had been a “great job from my team” to get him in a position where he didn’t feel hindered apart from one shot shape out on the golf course.

Stuart Barton and Bob MacIntyre pictured at East Lake in Atlanta during last week's Tour Championship

“It was a bit of a trilogy,” said Barton of what the issue had been. “A disc bulge was causing all the problems and the cause of that was that he’d got his hips stuck and his hips couldn’t rotate, meaning the sacroiliac joint, which is part of your pelvis, then became a victim and now you’ve got a problem with both the hip and sacroiliac joint. With them not being able to turn and stabilise you, it’s a bad combination and something else becomes the victim, which in this case was the disc.

“I used to get (former Scotland and British Lions coach) Ian McGeechan with the rugby boys saying to me ‘Barts, how is he going to be fit for next Saturday when he can’t walk with his back?’ But, when a disc gets damaged, you know that in seven days a chemical gets released in the body due to it taking that time to reabsorb it.

“You can almost set your watch to the seven days, so I said to Bob, who was pain-free by the time he teed off on Thursday but a bit stiff, ‘look, if we can get to the seven days, you can hopefully have a good Saturday and Sunday’ and look at his round on the Sunday.”

Explaining how he’d worked his magic, Barton continued: “First of all, I had to unlock his pelvis and the hip as that is just manipulation and something I’ve always done with the rugby boys. The old rugby trucks still come into their own and then it was all about disc exercising and hydrotherapy for his disc and it really worked a treat.

Stuart Barton was chuffed to get a signed flag from Bob MacIntyre after helping get him fit for the PGA Tour's season finale in Atlanta

“The thing about Bob is so authentic. It’s all wholehearted - you are getting everything. He wanted it so bad, so you are at an advantage already. When I was involved with the rugby lads, Gary Armstrong used to say ‘just strap it up, it’s fine’. John Jeffrey would be the same and, though it would be wrong to say that modern-day athletes are not like that, it was so refreshing for an athlete to say, albeit not in a direct way, just strap it up because he was going to play no matter what.

“He got better as the week went on and to see that round on the Sunday, I was emotional as we’d all put everything into it and it was great to see him getting a reward in the end. We’ve not talked about money. He was asking me about it and he’ll sort me out. But, as we were all packing up on Sunday night, he turned to me and said ‘Barts, I’ve got something for you’ and it was a signed flag from the event saying ‘thanks for getting me fit’. I couldn’t look at him as I was welling up.”

As MacIntyre takes a week off before starting a run of events on the DP World Tour, Barton is back at work in his Anstruther clinic. “There’s a few appointments to catch up on, but I am lucky that my clients understood the situation and adidn’t seem to mind that it was down to it being for me to help out someone like Bob,” he said.

“I’ve treated rugby greats in Jonny Wilkinson and Chris Paterson, golfing greats like Paul Lawrie and Colin Montgomerie, and he is as good as any of them in terms of his attitude, his disposition and his will to win. He’s up there with that group and that says it all for me.”