WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 23, 2022

Maverick McNealy

Austin Country Club

Flash Quotes

Q. One of the bigger blowouts we've seen at this event over the years. Kind of the day where everything went right?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: Yeah, definitely got off to a good start. I think I was 4-under through 7. Jaco didn't have his best stuff today, but it's one of those things where he's such a good player I knew he could rattle off five birdies at any given time. Just wanted to keep the pedal down and make sure he didn't have the opportunity.

Q. Take me through the last hole. I know it ended with the 18-footer. Did you sense if I win this hole it's over?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: Yeah. Obviously a win on the 12th would be -- or a halve on the 12th would be the end of the match, but it was very much one foot in front of the other kind of day and mindset was just win the next hole.

I hit a decent drive, missed on the correct side, hit a good lay-up shot and Jaco hit his wedge shot about 20 feet right, so then it was very simple, just hit the green and give myself a putt for it, and he conceded the 18-footer.

Q. So a tie on the hole would have been --

MAVERICK MCNEALY: Exactly.

Q. The mindset when you take that big a lead, it can be kind of dangerous territory, right? You don't want to be 5-up and end up losing --

MAVERICK MCNEALY: My mind doesn't even go that way, honestly. I was just like, Jaco is a great player, I know he can make a bunch of birdies, and I've just got to win the next hole. It's very simple, one foot in front of the other kind of day and honestly respect him as a player so much, seeing what he did at Riviera and so many other great golf tournaments, I know he's a great player and I just didn't want to give him any daylight.

Q. When did you find out you were in the field?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: I found out on Monday night -- I flew here on Sunday with my team, was preparing last week like I was going to play this week and I was actually watching my brother's adult league hockey game on Sunday night, and I got a call from my agent, we got a call from Sam Burns' agent saying he was going to withdraw from this week.

That was about five minutes before my brother was on the ice and they scored the goal with 15 seconds left to go up 2-1 and win, so it was kind of a fun five minutes there.

Q. Where was that?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: It was a rink about 15 minutes north of here.

Q. So you were already here?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: I was already here. I flew in Sunday morning, practice round Sunday afternoon, saw my brother Colton and watched his hockey game, brought back a lot of memories from junior hockey and watching him play growing up, too.

Q. Would you have gone to Puerto Rico?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: Yeah, I would have gone to Punta Cana. Yeah, the game feels great. I was itching to play. If I hadn't gotten in this field I would have been really fired up and wanting to go play great down there and make it in every tournament I wanted to play.

Q. How did your brother end up here?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: So all of four of us -- I'm the oldest of four boys. All four of us have left California. Brother No. 2, Dakota, is living in Incline Village, Nevada, and moving in with me in a couple weeks in Vegas.

Brother No. 3, Colt, moved here. He just started his own software company. He did computer science at Stanford in three years. He's the smart one. I'm the dumb jock of the family, I guess. Yeah, so he just started his own software company this year and has been coding away.

The youngest, Scout, goes to Baylor. He drove down from Waco last night, actually slept on the sofa in my hotel room last night, and he's graduating in his third year of statistics and on the Baylor golf team, and he's moving to Vegas this summer also.

The four of us are super close and it's fun to see where Colt lives this week for sure.

Q. Did he win his game?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: Yeah, he was on the ice when they scored a goal with 15 seconds left to win 2-1. That was like five minutes after I got the call that I was in the field. It was a good night for the McNealy boys for sure.

Q. Needless to say your folks are fans of westerns?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: Yeah, exactly. We're actually all named after American cars. Ford Maverick, Dodge Dakota, I think the Dodge Colt and International Scout.

Q. When was the last time you played match play?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: Match play was 2017 Walker Cup, my last event as an amateur.

Q. Did it feel like everything was normal today or was there a little bit of I haven't done this in a minute?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: I play match play every week at home for $5 birdies or Chipotle or whatever it is. There's lots of good guys to compete with in Vegas at home. I play a bunch of match play. But official match play it's the first time in five years.

Q. Was this one on the calendar that you looked at and thought, I'd really like to make that field?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: For sure. This is my first WGC. I think there's three kind of tours within the TOUR. There's the I-just-got-on-the-TOUR tour where you're playing in the Korn Ferry category and reshuffling and playing whenever you get the opportunity, and then the Top 125 you get to pick and choose your schedule, but you're not necessarily guaranteed the invitationals, WGCs and majors, and then there's the Tour that the top 50 in the world play, where they're in all four majors, all four invitationals and all the WGCs and then they pick and choose a handful of favorite other events and that's their schedule.

I think once you start playing against the best players in the world there's opportunities to earn more points, bigger purses. I'm kind of at that point right now, 60 something, 70 something in the world where a really good couple of weeks could put me in that top 50 and start getting me into tournaments that I want to play in.

Q. Did you have a best shot today, thinking back on it?

MAVERICK MCNEALY: I hit a couple really good ones. Just the stretch holes 3 through 7. Birdied 3, birdied 4, good two-putt for par on 5, utility on 6 was really good and then the putt on 7, just that stretch right there.

Jaco made a great birdie on 4 and I matched him with a birdie with a 6-iron on a par-3. That's always a good birdie.

So I was really happy with that stretch especially.