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The ball was sitting in a pot bunker. Hunter Stewart was standing outside of it. It was a textbook example of the awkward lies that can occur on the links courses of Great Britain & Ireland. Stewart hadn't hit the ball there, but it was his job to extricate it. Maverick McNealy struck the tee shot that wound up in this trap. It was on the first hole of their first match of the Walker Cup, a competition that pits the United States' best amateurs against their peers from GB&I. "Brutal" is how McNealy described the lie Stewart faced. "I put him in some really bad spots that first day in alternate shot," McNealy recalled recently. "His first shot of the entire Walker Cup, he was standing on his head." Six years later, Stewart is still trying to help McNealy get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible, but in a much different capacity. McNealy is in his second year on the PGA TOUR while Stewart, who has an economics degree from Vanderbilt, is in his second season working as a strategy consultant for TOUR players. Stewart's statistical analysis speaks the language of McNealy, a Northern California native who brings a Silicon Valley ethos to his career. "He's always coming up with ideas and ways to get better," Stewart said. "He innovates himself." McNealy finished 68th in the FedExCup last year. He made the cut in 17 of 23 starts, including six top-25s. A fifth-place finish at last year's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was his best of the season. The 25-year-old has four top-25s this season and is 87th in the FedExCup. McNealy has seen some of his peers enter the winner's circle before him, but he derives satisfaction from the improvement he's seen since turning pro. The son of former Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, Maverick expressed interest in entering the business world after college. Knowing he could still get better - even after a stellar career at Stanford, where was the NCAA player of the year, won 11 times and was and a two-time Walker Cupper - was a deciding factor in turning pro. "I've been asked when do I think I wouldn't want to play golf anymore and the answer is, ‘When I don't think I can get any better, when there's no stone unturned,'" McNealy said recently. "I love the fact that there's always room to improve." Scott McNealy used to roam the hallways of Sun and ask, "If you were CEO for a day, what would you do?" Maverick does the same with his employees, conducting annual interviews where each member of his team reviews their performance and his. "I ask, ‘How did the year go? What did you do well? Where did you struggle? Is there anything you need to do your job better? And, if you were me, what do you think you would do differently on and off the golf course?" McNealy said. "My dad said one of the most important things you can do is listen and give your employees a chance to talk openly and freely." Stewart said McNealy runs his team "like a business, and he's the CEO. He's a businessman who happens to be a PGA TOUR player. "Everyone has a role, and he's made it very easy for everyone on his team to do their job to the fullest. That's great leadership on his part." McNealy's swing instructor is Butch Harmon, who helped him sort out his swing when he was struggling with his ball-striking on the Korn Ferry Tour. McNealy has had the same caddie, Travis McAllister, since turning pro. They spent two years together on the KFT before reaching the PGA TOUR. "He's very detail-oriented and probably more of a perfectionist than I am," McNealy said. Susie Meyers is McNealy's mental coach. While McNealy was recruited out of college by the largest agencies, he decided to sign with Peter Webb, who runs a one-man operation. His trainer Is Scott Norton and physical therapist Jimmy Greathouse helped him recover from a shoulder injury he suffered last year. Karen Hallstein, who was Scott McNealy's secretary, helps Maverick with his travel. And Maverick's grandfather, Paul Ingemanson, is his financial adviser. "He'll let me know if there's a $5 fee on one of my credit cards that shouldn't be there," McNealy said. "I'm still driving my mom's 2011 Ford Explorer and I have A-list preferred status on Southwest. I think a lot of my spending habits come from my grandpa." Stewart is one of the newest additions to the team. He's not the first person to parse the ShotLink data to help players save shots, but he's the only one with a top-10 finish on TOUR. Stewart finished 10th in the 2015 Mayakoba Golf Classic, just his third TOUR start as a pro. Earlier that year, he finished third in the NCAA Championship, behind only future TOUR winners Bryson DeChambeau and C.T. Pan. Stewart's pro career stalled out on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada and in 2019 he decided to change careers. "I'm just trying to help them do the right thing on each shot," Stewart said. "It might not work on every shot because that's golf but the goal is to increase the probability of success." Stewart doesn't just help his players pick the right play on the course. He helps them set their schedule with events that fit their skillset, determine specific shots to focus on in practice rounds and set practice routines based on the state of their game and what an upcoming course may require. His goal is to help his clients save one stroke per tournament. That may not sound like much but it can have a huge impact on a player's season. McNealy uses the 12th hole at Detroit Golf Club, site of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, as tangible evidence of Stewart's impact. Stewart uses ShotLink to look at putts that players seem to consistently misread. In the practice rounds at Detroit GC, Stewart instructed McNealy to hit putts from a specific spot to the Sunday hole location. "When he tells me that, I know it's because guys never make that putt," McNealy said. He badly misread his first attempt but made an 18-footer on the same line when it mattered on Sunday. He finished T8, one of three top-10s last season. Stewart, a former SEC Conference Player of the Year and Kentucky native, also helps McNealy with his short game, especially with shots from the Bermudagrass common in the South. McNealy has learned to focus on shoring up his strengths instead of trying to fix every weakness. Stewart used Strokes Gained to devise a "winning formula" for McNealy, who was ninth in Strokes Gained: Putting last season. If he putts well, then he can garner a good finish by not losing strokes in Strokes Gained: Approach and avoiding penalty strokes with his driver. "I'm not in the business of asking guys to become something that they're not," Stewart said. "I think a lot of times people get bogged down in trying to become the best player in the world. The Tiger effect has skewed everyone's view of success in golf. I'm not saying we should limit what we try to do, but just because the Tigers and the Rorys of the world are winning all the time - they're great measuring sticks, but you shouldn't let that barometer of their success rob you of the joy of becoming the best player they can be." It's a journey that McNealy has enjoyed as he pursues his first PGA TOUR win.
Australia has long produced a steady pipeline of players who have found a home on the PGA TOUR. This week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, one of the new breed, Min Woo Lee, makes his TOUR debut. Lee is the younger brother of LPGA star Minjee Lee. (That makes two very talented brother-sister combinations coming from Down Under, with Gabi and Ryan Ruffels also trying to make their way in top level golf). Minjee, 24, already has five LPGA titles to her credit and represented Australia at the 2016 Olympics. Min Woo is 22 and already boasts a European Tour win - having won the PGA Tour of Australasia co-sanctioned Victorian Open in 2020 and was the U.S. Junior Amateur winner in 2016. Minjee won the U.S. Girls' Junior in 2012, making them the first brother-sister duo to win those USGA titles. Here both take us through their formative years and their ongoing journey in the world of golf. Coming out of my sister's awesome shadow By Min Woo Lee Growing up with Minjee, it was kind of a normal brother-sister relationship. There was a bit of rivalry when we were younger as we are both competitors. I remember she didn't want me hanging around when we were practising as I was kind of annoying. I was about eight when I really got into the game and she was 10 or 11 when she first started. We learned to travel early on in our early teens, and we kind of knew how to handle each other when we were off the course. We didn't need the full attention every time but it was always good to talk to her. Now, we certainly appreciate each other a lot as we don't get to spend much time together and it'll be nice to live in America someday as she lives over there. Winning the U.S. Junior Championship (in 2016) was one of the biggest wins of my amateur career. After the win, I thought I could play out in the U.S. as I had one of my best tournaments and winning was really special. To become the first brother-sister combination to win the U.S. Juniors (Minjee won the U.S. Girls' Juniors in 2012), that was pretty awesome and special. It's a piece of history which no one can take away from us. It's amazing to see what she has achieved. Even though she started playing after me, she got fired up really early. She has a lot of talent and works real hard. Her handicap came down quickly and when she turned pro, she won Qualifying School and pretty much won on the LPGA straight off the bat, and has won in nearly every year since then. The way she persevered and the hard work that she has put in, she deserves it and she's made her game very steady and very consistent to be in the top-10 for a long time. I get a bit of grief sometimes about being in her shadow a bit, so it's become kind of a motivation for me. But apart from that, it's nice to have a sister who plays at the highest level and you can brag and tell people she's a really good golfer. She's been a good mentor since I turned professional. Amateur golf is different to professional golf and I needed someone to talk to initially to guide me along and she's been there and I appreciate her for it. She also watches me play on TV, and I'm the kind of player who shows a lot of body language, some positive and some negative. In contrast, she is pretty calm and is very straight faced. I'm learning to be a bit more like her. I still want the fire or anger when something happens but I want to learn to be able to move away from it quickly. Minjee is very good at it, and you won't know if she's shooting 5-under or 5-over. That's one thing she's helped me the most as she is very level headed. Her work ethics are tough and she works so hard. She goes through all the drills and that's one thing I'm trying to improve. When I feel tired, I would stop. Her perseverance is amazing as she sticks with something that she needs to do and finishes it off. I really love that about my sister which is her normal character and her golf character. It's been fun to drive each other on. When she wins one, she's got the upper hand on me but when I won the Vic Open (February 2020), I got the upper hand for about three quarters of the year and then she wins in Dubai (December 2020) and now has the upper hand. We try to be the best that we can be in the world and we want each other to succeed. I think it's a good bragging right to have over your brother or sister. I'm so proud of him By Minjee Lee My brother was always interested in playing golf. When my mum used to teach at the local driving range, all his friends would be there and he would be trying to teach them how to hold the golf club, how to swing it. He was always interested in helping everyone just like how he was interested in the game itself. I think it was always going to be his pathway. From a young age, he wanted to be a professional golfer and wanted to be on Tour. He's really living his dream now and that's really cool to see. At a young age, he played golf very often with his friends. We didn't play too much together as he was always keen to be on the golf course while I was more the practiser, I'm either at the driving range or the chipping green. It was fun though to see each other hit some benchmarks as we were growing up. For example, I got into the state golf programme and a bit later, he got into the same programme. So it was cool to see how things happened in the different ways. Every year since he's been a professional golfer, I can see a bit more maturity in his game, and the way his practices. From the time Min Woo was an amateur to where he is now, he really owns what he does now. Through his experiences, he has gotten better as a player and has improved on the things that he needs to do. The biggest thing I've seen in him is the maturity in himself and his game. When we were young, we didn't play in tournaments together. I played the amateur stuff and he was playing junior events but I think because I was winning a lot of junior tournaments and amateur events, he sort of wanted to win as well. Maybe he had a one-sided rivalry against me. I think it's pretty special to have a brother as a professional golfer as you don't really see too many families with two golfers playing at the highest level. That's kind of a special thing coming from the family. Previously, a lot of people were saying ‘This is Minjee's brother' and I think that kind of got on his nerves a little but I think he's writing his own book now which is cool to see. Minwoo has a brighter personality. He loves the crowds, and he rides on the momentum through the crowds as he's a fiery spirit. I think that's probably the one thing I would want from his golf as he's really aggressive on the golf course. If I had a bit more of that, I think it would help make me become a better player. He's very friendly with everyone while I'm the introvert. I've gotten better but I'm still more of a homebody and the quieter one while he's definitely more outgoing. He's got a really good personality. As I've won several events on the LPGA, it is the highest achievement in women's golf and I think those wins drive him on to also want to win at the highest level. Because he sees me doing well, he wants to do well too and I'm sure he will. I've always been a bit more mature than him and I always think I have the responsibility of doing well and that he would follow in my footsteps. That's always been my mindset. However, when he won the Vic Open, that was one event that I really wanted to win but I didn't. I think because I saw him doing so well, I wanted to do well too which I guess pushed me along.
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