ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Maverick McNealy has long had a deal with his grandmother, Marm, that every time he cashes a tournament check for more than $50,000, he must send her flowers. Each top 10 also earns Marm a box of chocolates.
But now McNealy was going to have to up the ante, admitting, “I should probably get him something a little more special.”
That’s because McNealy, 29, is now a PGA Tour winner, his breakthrough, a one-shot victory Sunday at the RSM Classicseven years after the former top amateur flirted with life as a career entrepreneur only to give professional golf his best shot.
What a decision that turned out to be.
“My mind went blank, honestly,” McNealy said, nearly an hour after his winning putt on the 72nd hole. “It was an incredible adrenaline rush there.”
It’s fitting, considering the journey he’s been on.
McNealy was once a hockey player who dabbled in golf, rarely playing outside his region. But he knew his thin body wasn’t cut out for college hockey, and as a Stanford legacy, he verbally committed to his hometown Cardinal as a golfer during his junior year of high school. He was the third member of a star-studded 2013 recruiting class that also included U.S. junior winner Jim Liu and international prodigy Viraat Badhwar, so much so that he often joked that the coach’s trio of signees -leader Conrad Ray included three No. 1s – #1 in America, #1 in Australia and #1 in Portola Valley.
Yet it was McNealy who racked up the accolades — 11 college wins, tying the school record shared by Tiger Woods and Patrick Rodgers; two appearances in the Walker Cup; the highest ranked amateur in the world.
“I had no expectations of myself and everything seemed to happen by accident,” McNealy said. “It came very easily and caught me a little off guard, to be honest.”
McNealy had always dreamed of playing for Stanford, but after that he thought he would go into the business world, like his father, Scott, the billionaire tech mogul who founded Sun Microsystems, which he later sold at Microsoft. McNealy’s LeBron James-style decision was highly anticipated, but when he finally chose professional golf, he went all-in.
“The way I look at it is I’m jumping off a cliff right now… and there’s no looking back and there’s no doubt,” McNealy said on the day where he turned professional, in 2017.
A year later, McNealy was subjected to what is still his greatest test. A rookie on the Korn Ferry Tour, McNealy developed the yips in full force. He couldn’t play nine holes at TPC Summerlin, his Las Vegas course, without going through a dozen golf balls. It was so debilitating that McNealy called his then-caddie, Travis McAllister, to tell him he would skip the KFT Finals event in Columbus, Ohio.
What happened next was a potentially decisive turning point in his career.
“One of the most pivotal phone calls of my life,” McNealy said. “He told me, ‘Get your ass on a plane and we’ll figure it out.’ I went in there, hit it 50 yards off the first tee and we managed to get through somehow.
McNealy earned his PGA Tour card next season – and he hasn’t given it up yet. In his first three seasons, he accumulated nine top 10 finishes, including a few runner-up finishes, and never finished worse than 68th in FedExCup points. Of course, victory eluded him, but given his pedigree, it seemed only a matter of time.
Then he injured his shoulder.
McNealy tore his left anterior sternoclavicular in February 2023, an injury that sidelined him for about six months, required regenerative stem cell treatments and forced him to take an extension major medical condition this year. Many professionals would have been devastated, or at least discouraged. But Joseph Bramlett, McNealy’s best friend on the PGA Tour, remembers, even early in McNealy’s rehabilitation, a determined and inspiring McNealy.
“Like he does with everything,” Bramlett said, “he kept pushing, kept working, kept doing all the right things. … He made the most of it.
Has he ever done it. While he was away, McNealy obtained his pilot’s license and met his wife, Maya, who worked at the facility where McNealy was receiving his physical therapy. The couple fled on December 6. McNealy also rebuilt his swing, reversing his path to swing left and thereby reducing the strain on his body.
“I never lost faith that I would come back better than ever,” McNealy said.
He just didn’t expect it to all click, of all weeks, this one.
Sea Island Golf Club’s Seaside Course isn’t a great fit for McNealy, with its Bermuda-smooth greens and demand for precise iron play. McNealy joked earlier in the week that the only reason he signed up for RSM was because Maya loved the Lodge’s milk and cookies. But the truth is, McNealy wanted to challenge himself, and having already secured his place in the top 60 in the FedExCup – and spots in next season’s first two marquee events – he had a clear shot.
He also took the opportunity to put the new Titleist golf ball into play, and he drove it well in cold and windy conditions on Friday, backing up an opening 62 with a courageous 70 to stay in the hunt. The next day, McNealy, for only the second time in his career, took a share of the 54-hole lead and earned a tee time in Sunday’s final trio alongside co-leader Vince Whaley and Daniel Berger, who three years ago at Pebble Beach denied McNealy perhaps his best chance to become a PGA Tour winner.
One of McNealy’s greatest strengths is that he rarely gets impatient. He said he had prepared for his first professional victory to take 10, maybe even 15 years. But it’s not perfect either. McNealy recalls a conversation with Maya earlier this fall in which he expressed frustration at not getting the most out of her game.
Maya replied, “If you knew you were going to win in six weeks, would you do anything different?”
McNealy conceded: “Probably not. »
It was six weeks ago.
McNealy built a two-shot lead Sunday before seeing it evaporate. And a bogey at the par-4 14th propelled McNealy into the chasing pack, behind leading amateur Luke Clanton and the red-hot Nico Echavarria, already a winner this fall. Suddenly, McNealy seemed poised to increase his $10 million and change his winnings without a win. But Clanton and Echavarria both made bogey on the par-4 final hole to skid into the clubhouse at 15 under, tied with McNealy and Berger, who still had two holes to complete.
That’s when McNealy’s brother, Scout, intervened. Scout, the youngest of the four McNealy boys, jumped on Maverick’s bag before the FedExCup playoffs, leaving his real estate job on loop for the rest of the year. Scout’s superpower as a caddy is his lightness, and as McNealy prepared to hit an 11-footer for birdie on the par-3 17th, Scout, as he had done throughout the fall, in took the opportunity to launch into another joke.
Maverick refused to share what exactly was said, calling him unsuitable for the job. Scout didn’t want to divulge it either, but explained that the week had been full of inside jokes, like the fact that he had applesauce all over his yardage book and his golf bag. brother. Classic Scout.
“I just try to make him smile and laugh,” Scout said, “and when he plays like he does, it’s easy.”
A hole late, Maverick hit his approach shot from 195 yards to 6 feet, using a 6-iron from a new TaylorMade set that McAllister, of his own accord, had shipped to McNealy’s door before the fall. Following a missed birdie attempt by Berger, McNealy stepped in and sank the birdie dagger.
Moments later, Scout, still holding the flag, hugged Maverick and excitedly shouted, “Maui, baby!” With his victory, McNealy, who now ranks No. 31 in the world, earned an invitation to next year’s Sentry, as well as major starts at the Masters and PGA Championship; Scout will be there for those, having accepted a full-time position a few weeks ago in Japan.
Bramlett has known McNealy for decades, back when Maverick was an intrepid middle schooler challenging Stanford players to chipping contests, and he had no doubt that McNealy would make that winning putt. He considers McNealy one of the best putters in the world, a nickname McNealy proved last year when he led the PGA Tour in strokes gained: putting. McNealy isn’t a bad coach either, helping Bramlett on the greens this year while balancing newlywed life, passing a medical exam and getting involved in PGA Tour politics; McNealy’s analysis of the current FedExCup points structure led the PGA Tour to correct certain deficiencies for next season.
“He takes incredible care of the people around him,” Scout said of Maverick, known for sending handwritten notes each offseason to sponsors, tournament organizers and even members of the media.
McNealy’s latest act of kindness came Saturday night, when he said of Bramlett, who was fighting to keep his card this week: “I would trade 100 trophies to have him on the PGA Tour the next year.”
“Mav is the best person,” Bramlett said. “Everything he does as a human being, he’s the best. He cares about me a lot. I care about him a lot. I’m really happy for him.
So even after losing his full status, Bramlett was on the green at No. 18 to watch McNealy lift his first PGA Tour trophy into the blue, cloudless sky. Bramlett was accompanied by Maya, Scout and one of McNealy’s other brothers, Dakota, as well as McNealy’s longtime agent Peter Webb, who had arrived from Nashville a few hours earlier. Maya’s job on Sunday was to call McNealy’s parents on speed dial, just in case McNealy finished the job.
McNealy’s mother, Susan, couldn’t stop crying. Scott couldn’t help but smile.
It was Scott McNealy who first instilled the importance of a team in Maverick, who shared a bedroom with his four brothers growing up, one wall lined with twin beds. McNealy was now thanking a team that has grown well behind his family to include more than a dozen people, ranging from performance staff to sales staff.
This victory was no accident.
Every member of the Mav team played a role in Sunday’s breakthrough, so in McNealy’s mind, this trophy was for them all.
But it would look better on his grandmother’s mantelpiece.
