Maverick McNealy Clinches First PGA Tour Win at RSM Classic

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00:00In the final event concluding the FedExCup Fall, Maverick McNeely wins in

00:09his 142nd start on the PGA Tour. Caps it off with a 185-yard, 6-iron, 5.5 feet and

00:17makes a birdie on his 72nd hole to win at the RSM Classic. This gets him in the

00:23Masters, the PGA Championship, and the Sentry, and then by virtue of topping

00:28that Aeon Next 10 category, also gets in the AT&T Pro-Am and the Genesis

00:32Invitational. So quite a week for Mav. I love this. This is from a little nugget I

00:38found in Jeff Shackelford's quadrilateral newsletter. He admitted he

00:42plays this event largely because his wife, Maya, loves the Lodge at Sea

00:47Islands cookie and milk turndown service. So that's actually a great reason why to

00:52play that event. It's terrific. We are in cookies and milk season. You know, we

00:57got Santa right around the corner, so I love that. We've talked on the show

01:02about Maverick, you know, last couple weeks we talked about his deep dive

01:06analysis of the point structure and how it was sort of flawed and rewarding, you

01:11know, rewarding too many points for signature events and not enough for

01:14majors and sort of right-sizing that. He's brilliant. He went to Stanford. One

01:18of the other things that I've enjoyed charting this last, you know, two years

01:22really is his medical journey. It fascinates me. So he needed a medical

01:26exemption. He took about five months off. So here's his coach, Scott Hamilton,

01:31talking about when he first came to him. Mav sent him a video of when he was

01:36swinging his best and Scott noticed something. He said, I don't know how it

01:39happened, but a swing got so underneath that it was hurting him. His left

01:42shoulder shot way up in the air and he put tons of pressure on the shaft and

01:45would push his clavicle up. He went around rubbing his shoulder. So he had to

01:50step away from competitive golf last year because he tore a ligament in his left

01:54shoulder. But instead of getting surgery on that ligament, he treats it with a

01:58biomechanical analysis, stem cell treatment, and reworking his entire swing

02:03with Scott Hamilton. So here's Hamilton again. When I started working with him, he

02:07couldn't even take a divot. He might hit it fat or flare it way up in the air. I

02:10knew if we could just get the ball striking figured out his short game was

02:13gonna make him tough to tough to beat. So Hamilton has him stand a little bit

02:17taller, moves the plane a little bit steeper, more on top of the ball. The goal

02:21obviously mainly to eliminate that shoulder pain, but also to eliminate some

02:24of those erratic shots and his natural shot shape then becomes a fade. He gets

02:29more on top of the ball, better able to control his trajectory. And here he is

02:32after all those changes, not only fixing the issue with his shoulder, but winning

02:37his first tour event. So I everything Matt McNeely fascinates me. So cool to

02:41see him get it done here. And obviously a ton of emotion. You were in the booth

02:44calling this to see him sink that last birdie and win this event. I love Scotty

02:50ham. He's got Hamilton. He's in Cartersville, Georgia. I saw him for

02:55gosh, a couple years working on my golf swing. And he was like, just the best

03:00dude man to go through some struggles with and and just try to simplify as

03:05much as you can. And when you're talking about getting on plane, I just picture

03:09him saying to me, okay, get this thing on plane, man, we gotta get on plane. I'm

03:12like, you're right, Scott. God, I can't get it on plane. I'm underneath got the

03:15face wide open. But yeah, man, when it comes to math, what did I see this week

03:23that just was, you know, I think the one thing that surprised me and I always knew

03:27this was when I looked at his stats, how how good he is around the greens. And I'd

03:34always take it for him to be just like a real solid and everything like never

03:38like, like superpower, I guess like I continue always refer to what guys are

03:44really good at. He's really good around the greens. And then I think you throw in

03:49this, I think you throw in just a, a frickin IQ. That's not only a high IQ

03:56off the course, but on the course, they keep is a very intelligent player. You

04:01know, he just doesn't get he's not going to make too many mistakes. I thought

04:05yesterday. He said after the round that he, you know, was a little all over the

04:12place a little nervous. It didn't look that way. Because I felt like he was

04:16making really proper decisions. And was, you know, I felt like besides not making

04:21some pots on the back nine, like the three putt on 15 felt like it was gonna

04:25be really costly for him. And Daniel, they're both lucky that neither those

04:29two guys, that both of them made bogey on 18. Talking about Luke Landon, Nico

04:34Echeverria, we're gonna get into those guys in a minute. But when it comes to

04:38just what the kid went through, right with a shoulder injury and coming back,

04:44like he was playing really, really bad golf, like DFL before the injuries. And

04:50we're like, man, what's going on? Mav? He takes a year off, comes back, starts to

04:55find it. And yeah, I just got to give him a lot of credit. Because it's, you

05:02know, comebacks are not easy. And really that whole final group to which I was

05:05kind of surprising to see that really all three of these guys in the final

05:09group is Vince Whaley, Daniel Berger, and Mav. All had taken long medical leaves

05:15over the last four years. I mean, wrist stuff with Vince, Daniel's back, and then

05:20Mav's shoulder. So it was cool to kind of have that comeback story for all three of

05:25them. If any one of them had prevailed and it just happened to be Mav. But he,

05:29nobody really wanted to win the golf tournament it felt like. But Maverick hit

05:33the shot on 18.

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