Maverick McNealy: “It's been eight years since I won anything golf wise.”

Maverick McNealy was 52nd in FedEx points coming into the RSM Classic, so he had a place to play in 2025. But he and his wife had been enjoying traveling together and having his brother, Scout, on the bag made it more fun than not, so they decided to add the RSM to their schedule. His expectations were low.

“This is a golf course I haven't had much success on,” he admitted after the victory, his first on the PGA Tour. “Played so well on Thursday, it kind of affirmed all the work that our team's been putting in and the changes we made this year. Made the weekend a lot more exciting.”

When he says team, he means about 15 people, including his wife, Maya, and his brother and caddie, Scout, as well as stats people, physical therapists, equipment experts, financial advisors, and so on.  

When he says exciting, he wasn’t kidding.

The tournament wasn’t decided until McNealy made a birdie on the 18th after Daniel Berger missed his birdie attempt. He paused for a moment and then let out a yell.

It was a crowded leaderboard all day, particularly on the back nine. So many were truly in contention that the leaders kept changing. It looked as though there would surely be a playoff.

But then Maverick McNealy made the putt that changed everything.

In the hunt were Daniel Berger, a four-time PGA Tour winner who had been sidelined with a bad back until earlier this year; Nico Echavarria, a recent winner at the Puerto Rico Open; Mackenzie Hughes, a past RSM Classic champ; Michael Thorbjornsen, the second golfer to earn a PGA TOUR card with a No. 1 finish in the PGA TOUR University Ranking;  Patrick Fishburn, from a ranching family in Utah; and Vince Whaley, who was the leader after the third round. Even amateur Luke Clanton, currently the top college amateur who has played in seven PGA Tour events this year in addition to the U.S. Open, had a chance.

Echavarria, Berger, and Clanton finished one shot back of McNealy.

None of them had an easy time of it, either. The first two days of the tournament were chilly with winds gusting to 30 MPH. On a course that is framed by water and salt marshes, wind is no friend of the golfer. A shot off line often isn’t playable or even findable.

However, in the final round, McNealy was laser-like, missing only two fairways, one at the 13th, where he found a right fairway bunker, and one at the 14th where he found some unmanicured dirt. The rest of the time, he was a short grass specialist. His accuracy was rewarded with a victory.

McNealy credited other people on his team, especially his wife, Maya, and his brother, Scout.

“Having two people that ground me, believe in me more than I believe in myself sometimes and just unconditionally in your corner, it made all the difference in the world, and I felt that all year,” McNealy admitted.

The trio played five tournaments in a row twice this year. He cited Phoenix, where he had a top 6, and said because of Maya and Scout it was easy to keep going.    

“Usually, I'd be counting down days until I got to go home and instead had a great week to finish there,” he explained. “We did five out of the last six, three of which were international, and we were having such a fun week here,” he added.  

Perhaps McNealy is finally coming into his own. He was a golf standout at Stanford, but his skills did not translate immediately to the pro circuit. Then he was injured, and it took him a while to climb back up the ladder to the place where many people had predicted he belonged.  

“The lowest of the low was when I had the full swing yips at the end of 2018 right before the Korn Ferry Finals, and I couldn't make it through nine holes without going through a dozen golf balls at TPC Summerlin. So that was the lowest of the low,” he admitted.

But he seems to be an optimist, adding, “The cool thing about professional golf is that you have the chance to change your life any given week, and it doesn't matter what happens the week before, two weeks before.”

Next up for McNealy is buying flowers for his grandmother, seeing his family in California, and then going to Hawaii where he and his wife are going to re-do their vows in front of everyone. They eloped last December.   

McNealy is the son of Scott McNealy, former CEO and one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, which was bought by Oracle in 2009. He and his wife have four sons, all apparently named after 1970s cars: Maverick, Colt, Dakota, and Scout.