Maverick McNealy and wife Maya in November after his win at the RSM Classic.
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Winning is hard.
Winning is hard. Winning is hard. Winning is hard. Winning is hard. Winning is hard.
Winning is hard.
Maya McNealy heard it, and Maverick McNealy said it—often. (If you’re curious, the number of sentences that start this article represents the number of years the latter hasn’t finished an event on top as a pro.) And, in his defense, he won IS troublesome. They can be alone A winner, right? That’s the beauty of sports. And it’s a wart. Just one? Why not a dozen? You wouldn’t blame McNealy for at least asking something like that. For years, it was at the top of almost everyone’s list the best players to never wina review you don’t mind spending a little time on, just not, you know, years.
Then, he wasn’t. In November, at the RSM Classic, the final PGA Tour tournament of 2024, he won. Even epically. McNealy was tied with three other pros on the 18th hole of the final round before hitting a 7-iron from 185 yards to 5 feet, 5 inches that led to a birdie and a maiden victory.
Finally. Thanks to some tips from Maya.
On Tuesday, the pro was remembering it all. This week, they are playing keepercap to the tournament season, and of course it’s a time to look ahead. And look back. It’s part of the party. And duplication of parts. You want to figure out what worked and run it again and again.
For McNealy, it was a 15-word heart-to-heart.
“I definitely appreciated the win because I realized how hard it is to win,” McNealy said. “I actually got to the point where my wife is, like, ‘Stop talking about how hard it is — just go out and do what you’re doing.’ That was the big lesson, was that I didn’t do anything different from what I’ve been doing – it just all fell into place.
“I had many chances. I don’t know, I wasn’t really worried about not winning. I wasn’t thinking any less. I figured it would probably happen – it just needed a few things to go right. And also kind of figure that the first one is probably the hardest, maybe like your first degree, any milestone.
A thought from his younger brother, Scout, also helped. He’s his own caddy, and the pro said he thinks a little linearly. “My kind of engineering brain,” he called it. To that end, he believed his career would look like this: Get card, keep card, start making cuts, start finishing in the top 10, start playing in the final group, start finishing near the top, start winning. But who’s to say you can’t just win now, Scout said. Skip every step in between. Then he did.
Just as he had predicted.
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“I always thought I had a chance to be a really, really good player.” McNealy said, “because at any point, or at any point in my career, I feel like I’ve been elite in one part of the game, not all at the same time. I have run it brilliantly, 2021 to 2022; approach game was really good in college; the short game has been very good lately; and in 2023, I was no. 1 in putting.
“So I feel like all the pieces were there, just not together at once. So I think I’ve done a better job of understanding. Working with (coach) Scotty Hamilton, especially on the golf swing, was the biggest part that’s been missing. Realizing what I needed to get back to hitting the elite ball, and that’s what held me back for the last moment.”
Was McNealy nervous at RSM? Sure, he said. But he also said Tuesday he watched a replay of last year’s 3M Open final round — where he struggled before tying for third — and saw something. He said he seemed calm, while the others didn’t – so “they must have really felt it. So I just took that to heart where everybody’s nervous, everybody’s uncomfortable.”
The 18th shot at RSM then went to what Maya had told him.
“Standing over the 6-iron on 18, I just executed exactly the way I did because it worked and it was really good,” McNealy said. “Standing on the putt, I was like, I’m really nervous right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hit a bad shot, it doesn’t have any effect on me hitting the shot worse than I did. So I just went through my routine and it turned out perfect.”
One last thing:
How many times has he gone back and watched that putt?
“Maybe 10 or 12,” McNealy said. “It’s been a lot of fun. Sometimes, if I’m bored in the range, I say, “Oh, that was pretty cool, that’s fun.”
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