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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.