McNealy went on to earn his Tour card at the end of 2019 and has been on a steady rise ever since.
One of the early highlights came during the 2020 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where players like Lee Westwood (2013), Graeme McDowell (2014) and Rory McIlroy (2018) had all celebrated Father’s Day in February by playing at Pebble Beach with their fathers.
In 2020, McNealy and father, Scott, joined forces for the second time, and opened with 6-under 66 at Pebble Beach.
“Someday, we joked, we have to play in this. I’d be the pro and he’d be the am,” said Maverick, who teamed up with his dad for the first time in 2018 and remembers his dad sneaking him inside the ropes at Pebble Beach when he was 5 years old and “still cute.”
This marked the 14th appearance here for the elder McNealy, the 65-year-old billionaire founder of Sun Microsystems who once won the Jack Lemmon Award given to the amateur MVP. Maverick’s favorite memory of the tournament before joining the pro ranks is the time he turned on his phone when his flight landed in San Francisco late one Saturday night in February during his freshman year at Stanford in 2014. His eyes grew wide as he read a text from his father, Scott. “I’m paired on Sunday with Phil Mickelson at Pebble Beach. Do you want to caddie for me?”
Heck yeah!
Without hesitation, Maverick hopped in his car and made the journey to Pebble. While waiting on the fifth tee box the following day Mickelson gave Scott his cell phone digits so they could keep in touch. When Mickelson wandered over to the tee, Maverick whispered to his dad, “OK, you’re officially cool in my book now.”
Scott thought he’d played for the final time until Maverick’s sponsor KPMG, offered him a spot. It seems everyone is a sucker for a good father-son story at Pebble. Another sponsor, Under Armour shipped them matching shirts, pants, and pullovers. They’d played thousands of rounds together, but this was more special and a reminder that Pebble Beach is a place where pros and amateurs and golf pair together quite like nowhere else. And this year, so do fathers and sons, especially the type that dish out pre-round advice.
“Dad, just two things tomorrow,” Maverick said before the opening round. “Hit the driver hard. If we find it great. If not, swing hard again next hole. And, don’t leave any putts short. And let’s have fun!”
“What a great pro I got assigned this year,” Scott quipped. “Knows just what to say. Love him to death.”
Maverick went on to finish tied for 5th in the 2020 event, his top finish on Tour that season, and did one better by finishing runner-up to Daniel Berger at the tournament the following year. He finished the 2021 season by making the cut in his final eight events, placing in the top 30 in all but one of those, and finished with over $2 million in earnings.
