Arvidsson heads Herbert, Kang as players target top 15 at PGA TOUR Series-China Q-School

Contentment, and one of the game’s greatest coaches, helped Maverick McNealy join his peers on the PGA TOUR after two trying seasons. McNealy turned pro in 2017 after compiling one of the most impressive amateur resumes of the decade. He reached No. 1 in the world amateur ranking and represented the United States on two Walker Cup teams. He won both the Hogan and Haskins awards and shares Stanford’s school wins record with Tiger Woods and Patrick Rodgers. McNealy is still just 23 years old. Even in today’s youth-obsessed game, that’s considered ahead of the curve. This was a unique season on the PGA TOUR, though. Two of his teammates from the 2017 Walker Cup – Cameron Champ and Collin Morikawa – won tournaments. Matthew Wolff did, as well, just weeks after winning the NCAA Championship. McNealy admits that it was tough to not make comparisons and wonder why he didn’t have the same quick success. He knew others certainly were. “I found two gray hairs,� McNealy, who turns 24 in November, joked recently. That wasn’t a remark on his age, however. Struggles with his driver led to a stressful first season on the Korn Ferry Tour. McNealy saw progress after taking his first lesson from Butch Harmon earlier this year. There were changes to McNealy’s mental game, as well. He’s accepted the difference between contentment and complacency. He used to fear the former would lead to the latter. McNealy is playing his third event as a PGA TOUR member at this week’s Safeway Open, not far from his hometown and alma mater. We’ll let him describe his journey to the PGA TOUR in his own words (Note: conversation condensed for space and clarity). PGATOUR.COM: You struggled towards the end of your first season. How bad did it get? Maverick McNealy: “Last year, at the end of the season, I was in a really bad place. I had a really hard time with my ball-striking. I was really stuck underneath and had this really bad right block. It became mental. “There was a week there where I came home to Vegas and I lost two dozen golf balls in a week. I just couldn’t hit a fairway. When it got to Columbus (for the opening event of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals), I told my caddie, ‘I don’t know if I can play. I don’t know if I should keep going.’ He told me, ‘Just get your butt on an airplane.’ It was a heroic effort to make the cut in Columbus. I missed the rest of the cuts in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, but that was kind of the turning point.� PGATOUR.COM: What did you learn from those struggles? McNealy: “I learned that, to be successful in this game, there are going to be highs and lows. You have to be able to get through the lows and there has to be a purpose for the struggle. “There are plenty of bad reasons to play professional golf, and I needed a really good one. I came to two reasons why. One, I think golf tests you in a lot of ways and makes you become a lot better. Golf amplifies all these emotions you feel, so you have to be better. This process of struggling and having to do things better ended up being why I love playing professional golf because it makes you have to improve. I love the negative side of it more now. “The second reason was I like to make a difference and make an impact and do good, and that’s also a driving reason for why I’m playing golf. I started Birdies for Education this year because, in high school, I did my volunteer hours with Curriki. It’s a non-profit for K-12 educational materials, trying to lower the cost of education and make high-quality education available to everybody. We ended up raising $385,000 for Curriki this year.� PGATOUR.COM: Was it difficult to not compare yourself to some of the young players who had quick success on the PGA TOUR in 2019? McNealy: “Definitely. The thing that helped me process all that was being OK with where I am. It’s not complacency. It’s completely different. I have to be content with where I am. That does not affect my drive to improve and get to the next level in any way.  “Exceptionalism is an impossible standard to hold yourself to. It’s something to strive for, but by definition it’s an exception. Nowadays we are so obsessed with everything that is an anomaly. With social media and news and everything, we hear about the farthest ends of the bell curve. That’s the hardest thing to compare yourself to. I just said, ‘I am where my feet are. I am where I am, I’m happy with where I am, and I’m going to try as hard as I possibly can to get better and improve.’� PGATOUR.COM: Was last year stressful? McNealy: “One hundred percent. Through my senior year of college and the first year-and-a-half as a pro, I didn’t deal with expectations, self-imposed or external, very well. I was living in the world of have-to instead of want-to.� PGATOUR.COM: When did that change? McNealy: “It was the middle of this year. My whole life, I’ve felt pressure to be exceptional. I’ve had so many amazing opportunities and such great advantages that I have to do something with them. If I’m in school, I have to get As. If I’m in the business world, I have to be a world-beater. If I’m in golf, I have to do something special. I said to myself, ‘I’m 23 years old and in my second season on the Korn Ferry Tour and in the worst case I’ll be in my third season next year. That’s pretty good.’� PGATOUR.COM: You’re very introspective. What are some ways you analyze your game? McNealy: “I write down the details of every shot I hit in my pin sheet. I can go back to any pin sheet – which I save and scan and have them all stored – and I’ll be able to remember every shot I’ve hit at every golf course. “And I write down an overview of how the day went. How my warm-up was, how I was feeling, how the round went, what I did well, what I struggled with, any feels I was thinking of, anything that helped me play a certain shot, anything about the golf course that I found noteworthy and what I worked on after the round. I have that all logged for every tournament. I like to answer the question, ‘Why?’� PGATOUR.COM: Your girlfriend, LPGA player Danielle Kang, helped you get connected with Butch Harmon. How did that come about? McNealy: “Danielle told me, ‘By the way, Butch mentioned that if you ever wanted to come in and see him, he’d take a look.’ I said, ‘Oh, really? He would?’ I went and saw him and three golf balls in he said he knew what I was doing. “Honored and humbled are two very overused words, but honestly I am that I get to work with him. It’s an incredible opportunity to learn from one of, if not the greatest, golf minds of the last 50 years. It’s pretty cool. I’m just going to try to learn as much as I can from him and be a sponge and work really, really hard.  PGATOUR.COM: What did Butch recognize in your swing? McNealy: “Butch makes everything really, really simple. He helped me to de-clutter. I was stuck between feels. I had a different feel every day. Basically, I was backing up. The upper-body was moving back and the club was moving forward. That brought in a two-way miss. I’d miss it left because I was afraid of blocking it right. “He said three things: On the backswing, load right. Go left on the downswing, and stand a bit taller with the driver. Three days in, I said, ‘Wow, this is the first time I’ve worked on the same thing for three days and it’s gotten better all three days and it’s felt better every single day.�

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OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. - The players will deny it but there were reports a collective of them snuck back out on to Olympia Fields post round on Friday to perform a rain dance. With the former U.S. Open venue playing just like it would for a national championship, just two players sit under par after 36 holes. The hard and fast fairways and greens and tricky rough see only FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay at one under. Just two others, last week's champion and current FedExCup leader Dustin Johnson plus Japan's Hideki Matsuyama, are level par. The other 65 players are licking their wounds and praying for rain. And chances are they might get it. Forecasts gave a 60 percent chance of storms and some rain overnight. Of course that means a 40 percent chance of none. And McIlroy for one hope that's the case. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Cantlay, Scott position themselves for TOUR Championship push The champion of last year's season-long race is happy that this represents the fewest players under par through two rounds in a non-major since 2000. This despite dropping two shots in his last five holes. The scoring average through two rounds is 72.775 on the par-70 layout. "I said last week after the tournament, if you need someone to shoot between like even par and 2-under, I’m your man, so I’m loving these conditions," he said. "This is proper golf. This is you’ve really got to think about stuff, you’ve got to land it on your numbers, you’ve got to put it in play. Those sort of five-, six-footers for pars to sort of keep the momentum going is huge. It’s nice to play a round of golf like that again." McIlroy is obviously pleased to be where he stands at the halfway mark but expects those from back in the pack to come after those with a current advantage. If the course does get a little moisture from either rain or maintenance watering the greens it is likely to dry up as the day progresses. "We’re supposed to get a little bit of rain tonight, but I don’t think enough to really soften it. I think you’ll see over the weekend guys will go off early, be able to shoot some decent scores, and then as the day goes on and the later tee times get out there, it’ll just get progressively harder as the day goes on," McIlroy said. "I think something like remember THE PLAYERS Championship when it was back in May, guys would go out on a Sunday, six or seven back, shoot a 66 and they’d hang around the clubhouse all day and wait and see what happens to the guys on the way in. I think you might see something similar to that this weekend." Johnson won last week's THE NORTHERN TRUST at 30 under par. He knows the winner might be lucky to be three under this week. A long birdie on the last hole Friday brought him level and in contention to go back-to-back in the Playoffs. Both he and McIlroy share a record five FedExCup Playoff wins so far in their career. "It's a completely different golf course, completely different conditions. It’s firm and fast, and it’s a lot of fun to play this kind of golf. I like it. It’s very difficult, but you’ve got to stay focused all day long, and you’ve really got to pick and choose your spots where you can be a little bit aggressive," Johnson said of the contrast that saw the field a collective 383 over par through two rounds. "Last week was fun, too. But this week is more of a grind, that’s for sure. Every single hole out here is difficult. You’ve got to really be focused on every shot that you hit." Matsuyama is the only player in the field to reach four under throughout the tournament thus far, doing so with a sublime chip in for a birdie on the par-3 eighth hole on Friday. Unfortunately, it was his final highlight and four bogeys followed. "I wasn’t able to drive the ball well today, so it was a tough round," he said. "I’m just happy that I’m in position where I can contend on the weekend." Cantlay needed a hole-out eagle, a chip-in birdie and a 42-foot birdie putt on the last hole to keep his total under par. The two-time winner knows he can't rely on that over the final 36 holes. "The golf course is really, really good, but it’s very, very difficult. The chip-ins obviously helped a bunch, and you don’t do that every day, so I need to hit it a little better on the weekend. But for a scrambling day, it was excellent," Cantlay mused. "It’s about as stiff of a test as you would want. It’s very, very difficult, and you have to play from the fairway, and you have to play from below the hole, frankly. The greens have so much slope on them that you really need to be putting uphill, and so if you’re in the rough, it gets exponentially harder to do that." The former UCLA standout believes the key to victory will be keeping a level head. "You’ve got to realize that you’re going to make mistakes," he explained. "You’re going to make some bogeys just because of how hard the golf course is, and always having a forward mindset as opposed to thinking about what’s happened or what the mistakes you’ve made is really important." Those who dwell on mistakes will be no doubt forever mired in the clouds... and not the rain clouds they desire.

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Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are ready for a made-for-TV rematch at a time when fans are craving live action. And this time, they’ll have company. Turner Sports says quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning will join them for a two-on-two match sometime in May. Missing from the announcement were such details as when and where the match would be played, except that tournament organizers would work with government and health officials to meet safety and health standards. Turner said all donations and fundraising from “The Match: Champions for Charity” would benefit relief efforts for the COVID-19 pandemic. The event will be televised on TNT, with social and digital content leading up and during the event available through Bleacher Report and House of Highlights. “It’s on now,” Mickelson tweeted Wednesday afternoon responding to Bleacher Report. He added that he would be paired with Brady, saying: “After feeling the sting of defeat the first time around, Looks like (at)TigerWoods is bringing a ringer to The Match ((hash)PeytonManning). I’m bringing a GOAT. (at)TomBrady — Ready to hit bombs?” The first match over Thanksgiving weekend in November 2018 was supposed to be pay-per-view, except that technical difficulties allowed everyone to watch. It lacked some of wild bets both players had teased, and the trash talking was forced at times. Mickelson ended up winning the $9 million winner-take-all purse in a wedge contest under the lights when the matched ended in a tie. Live golf was last seen on television March 12, the first round of THE PLAYERS Championship as developments with the new coronavirus accelerated at such a rate that sports began shutting down. The PGA TOUR first decided not to have fans at the TPC Sawgrass, then canceled its premier event, and then began canceling or postponing all tournaments across each of its tours. Woods was not at THE PLAYERS. The defending Masters champion has not played since he finished last in his Genesis Invitational at Riviera on Feb. 16. Saying his back did not feel ready, Woods chose not to play the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship, the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and THE PLAYERS Championship. Woods and Manning have played together in pro-ams on the PGA TOUR. The Palm Beach Post has reported that Brady, who recently signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has joined fabled Seminole Golf Club in south Florida.

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