Late-Sunday Cal-Stanford alumni matchup at Fortinet Championship goes Cal’s way as Max Homa wins

“I’d rather be lucky than good” was one of my late father’s favorite sayings, but what’s hard to beat is someone who’s both—and that sums up 8-year Tour pro Max Homa’s final round at the Fortinet Championship pretty well.

Opening the tournament with a 5-under 67 was a good start for the 2013 Cal grad, but following the 67 with an even-par 72 must have made for a tense Friday evening—he was not to know this, of course, but no one else who carded an even-par round on Friday finished better than T-22, and 18 of those who did, missed the cut.

Still, Homa’s five-under standing was good enough to make the cut with a shot or two to spare, and a Saturday pairing with fellow SoCal native and notable positive-thinker Phil Mickelson may have been just what the doctor ordered for him. After a so-so one-under opening nine in which he balanced two bogeys against three birdies, Homa and Mickelson had a chat and decided that they both needed to get something done on the back nine.

It worked. Mickelson ran off a string of five birdies after a bogey on the 12th, and Homa birdied six of the nine holes, including a string of three to close out the round, with no bogeys, for a back-nine 30. The “moving day” 65 put Homa in a five-way tie for 3rd, two strokes behind co-leaders Maverick McNealy and Jim Knous.

Homa and McNealy ran off identical 33s on the front nine on Sunday, and Homa slipped back by a stroke with an untimely bogey and the par-4 10th hole—but it was at the 12th, a relatively straightforward 393-yard par-four, that things began to get interesting.

Homa’s drive strayed right and ended up in a reasonable lie in the right rough, leaving him 94 yards to the back-center flag. Trusting in the advice of his caddy, Joe Greiner, Homa lofted a shot to the center of the green that took three hops and rolled on a curving left-to-right path right into the cup for an eagle—and all of a sudden he was one back of the leader McNealy. Skill? Yes, but even Homa admitted after the round that it was a lucky shot.

Stanford grad McNealy, whose game had cooled off after a second-round 64, opened his fourth-round back nine with a string of six pars, while Homa followed the pitch-in eagle on 12 with a birdie on 13 to tie the lead. For the next three holes nothing changed, as the two carded identical pars on holes 14 through 16—and then came the 17th hole.

Max Homa hit two pure shots, one from the tee and one from the fairway that landed 18 feet above the hole, and rolled in a tricky right-to-left downhill slider to make birdie, and take over the lead, by a stroke, from McNealy.

McNealy, on the other hand, fared rather less well on the 17th hole than his namesake automobile—a nondescript compact marketed by Ford in the 1970s—ever had in the marketplace.

Coming over the top with probably the only bad swing he had made all day, McNealy’s tee shot at the 361-yard par-four hit a tree on the right and dropped well short, leaving him farther from the hole—189 yards—than he was from the tee. His second flew the green, and his chip from the trampled-down rough behind the putting surface raced by the hole on the downslope and ran off the front of the green. Another chip, from the front apron, left him an 11-foot bogey putt down the hill, which narrowly missed, followed by a two-footer for double-bogey that finally dropped.

And just like that, Max Homa was the tournament leader by three strokes.

A sloppy but routine par at the 18th by Homa put McNealy in the unenviable position of having to hole out from the fairway to tie the round and force a playoff. That fairytale scenario didn’t pan out, but the young man who literally grew up on Pebble Beach Golf Links before his family moved to Hillsborough, on the San Francisco Peninsula, when he was a teen, and who was more interested in hockey than golf before walking on to the Stanford Men’s Golf team, showed his fortitude on the final hole. With a calm that showed that he had put the relative ugliness of the previous hole behind him, he striped a center-cut drive down the final fairway, followed by a beauty of a shot to the back of the green at the par-five 18th, rolling in a 32-foot eagle putt to cement a solo second-place finish.

It was an exciting final-round tussle between a SoCal kid who came north to play college golf for public university Cal-Berkeley, and a NorCal native who made his mark on the team for the exclusive private university across the bay. This was Homa’s third win, and second in his home state, and while McNealy is still looking for his first PGA Tour victory, this tournament, and his narrow miss to finish second at last year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, show that his fans are not likely to have to wait long before he hoists a trophy on the PGA Tour.

Stanford surges in final round, doubles up in Western Intercollegiate

The San José State Spartan men’s golf team, hosts of the Western Intercollegiate, took a one-stroke lead into the final round of the 73rd running of the event after leading for 36 holes, and Spartan junior Sean Yu came into the final round three strokes back of Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda in the race for the individual title. These numbers set up a final round that Spartan golf fans hoped would be reminiscent of the 1996 event, the last time that a Spartan player, (then-SJSU junior Arron Oberholser) took individual honors, even as Stanford took home the team trophy.

Wednesday’s final round, played under sunny skies that showcased the long views across Monterey Bay that are a feature of many of the holes at Pasatiempo Golf Club, saw cross-bay rivals Stanford and Cal surge past their South Bay hosts, posting team scores of 340 and 341, respectively, while San José State slipped back to third place with a 352 team total.

Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda blasts out of a bunker behind the 10th green at Pasatiempo Golf Club during the final round of the 2019 Western Intercollegiate golf tournament. Salinda went on to take individual honors after a five-hole payoff with San José State junior Sean Yu. (Photo by author)

In the individual competition, Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda went wire-to-wire for the win, completing the third Stanford sweep of team and individual honors in the last six years (2014, 2016, and 2019), and the fifth in tournament history—but San Jose State junior Sean Yu made him work for it, posting a 66 to Salinda’s even-par 70 as the pair came to the end of 54 holes tied at 202.

What followed was the longest playoff in the tournament’s 73-year history. The duo traded pars for four holes, playing the 18th hole twice, then 10, and 17, before returning to the 18th hole, a uniquely situated 169-yard par-three finishing hole. Salinda dropped a flag-seeking tee shot to seven feet below the flag on the fifth playoff hole, while Yu’s ball came to rest 12 to 15 feet above the flag. When Yu’s birdie putt slipped past the hole the door was left open for Salinda, who walked through it with a firm, center-cut birdie putt to cement the win.

Salinda is the ninth individual champion from Stanford in the tournament’s 73-year history, and the Cardinal’s team victory is the 11th since they won the inaugural event in 1947.

Pasatiempo will play host to a number of these players again on May 13th, when USGA local qualifying for the 2019 U.S. Open takes place at the Alister Mackenzie masterpiece in the hills above Santa Cruz.

This year’s event was sponsored by TopGolf entertainment centers, and televised, for the first time, on Golf Channel.

Maverick McNealy makes strong start to pro career in first round of 2017 Safeway Open

Maverick McNealy, the former Stanford men’s golf standout who is making his first start as a professional golfer this week at the Safeway Open, at Napa’s Silverado Resort and Spa,  brings a unique background and point of view to a pro golf career. McNealy, who ended his amateur career ranked #2 in the world, after a stint at #1, is not your typical highly ranked college golfer using college golf as a springboard to a pro career.

Former Stanford men’s golf star Maverick McNealy lines up his birdie putt on the par three 15th hole at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, California during the first round of the 2017 Safeway Open. (photo by author)

The 21-year-old graduated from Stanford with a degree in Management Science and Engineering—not a more typical future-Tour-pro soft option such as Communications or Sports Management—and for the first couple of years of his college career had looked forward to following college golf with a career in business.

There’s precedent for his early direction—McNealy’s father is Scott McNealy, co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems, a well-known (if not legendary) figure in Silicon Valley. With a Stanford degree in a rigorous dual-business/engineering discipline, and his father’s example to follow, the younger McNealy anticipated following his college golf career with a career in business.

In a statement he posted on the Stanford’s collegiate sports website, McNealy explained his decision to pursue a professional golf career. “It wasn’t until after my sophomore year that it even crossed my mind that I might be good enough to give it a shot …my top priorities in college lay with my team and my studies. I wouldn't have traded one day with my teammates wearing the Cardinal red for anything.”

A former junior hockey player as well as a golfer, McNealy signed with Stanford in November 2012, and through his sophomore and junior years he stood out even on the traditionally strong Stanford squad. Winning six times in his sophomore season, and four more times as a junior, McNealy won the 2015 Fred Haskins Award as the top male college golfer.

McNealy struggled with his game starting in the spring of his junior year, the result of equipment changes he made in the wake of Nike Golf’s exit from the golf hard goods market. A tough playing schedule combined with a rigorous school schedule saw him stepping away from golf for a rest in the summer before his senior year. He won only once as a senior, which left him in a three-way tie for the school wins record with Patrick Rodgers and another familiar name in Stanford men’s golf, Tiger Woods (who did it in two years, as an Econ major.)

With a frankly privileged Silicon Valley upbringing—wealthy parents, and an education from the Harker School and Stanford—McNealy could coast through life, but that’s not his way. Using the example of his father, whom he calls his “hero”, McNealy wants to use the opportunities afforded him by a pro golf career to grow the game of golf and “…be a role model and an inspiration to young golfers and athletes.” The elder McNealy employed 235,000 people worldwide during his tenure at Sun Microsystems, and his son would like to have a similar positive impact on the world.

Of his father, McNealy says, “If I could work half as hard as he did, and accomplish a fraction of the things he did, I could make the world a better place.”

McNealy brings a certain level of experience in professional golf to his first start as a pro, having played in nine professional tournaments as an amateur, five on the PGA Tour – making the cut in all five of those events. He has also brought a high level of business acumen to bear on his transition into the pro ranks. Working with his management team at P3SportsReps, McNealy has secured endorsement deals with UnderArmour for apparel, financial services company KPMG for hat space, and Callaway for equipment.

The Callaway decision springs from his struggles with the transition when Nike pulled out of the business, and his education in engineering. “I’m an engineer by training, and I love the way they (Callaway) nitpick and try to make the best possible golf clubs.”

The Safeway Open is the first of seven PGA Tour events for which McNealy has secured sponsors’ exemptions, a list which includes the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (where his father will be his pro-am partner), the Farmers Insurance Open, AT&T Byron Nelson, and Dean & DeLuca Invitational.

The Safeway event is a comfortable start for Bay Area native McNealy, with familiar climate, conditions and course—Stanford played the Gifford Collegiate event at Silverado last fall.

McNealy had a strong showing in his first round as a pro, carding a 4-under 68 to finish the round T-8.

Going out in 1-under 35, McNealy was a little wobbly on the greens on the front nine, taking 17 putts, with a three-putt bogey on the par-three 2nd hole, and a handful of just-missed birdie opportunities. He closed out the front side on a rising note with birdies at holes 8 and 9.

A bogey on the 10th hole opened his second nine, but it was the last over-par number he posted on the day. His tee shot at the over-water par-three 11th hole settled 15 feet from the hole, and he slid the putt right into the throat of the hole for a birdie to go 2-under for the round. McNealy then made a run of three pars on holes 12 through 14.

The pressure didn’t seem to phase the the youngster, but after he made a tougher-than-it-looked downhill/sidehill 4-1/2-foot par putt on #12, his father, who had been following Maverick all day, was heard to say, “This is hard, it’s really hard.”

The younger McNealy seemed to get his game dialed in on the back nine, with closer approaches that contributed to a lower putt-count—14 vs the 17 he took on the front side. Firing up just when it counted, McNealy then put together a string of three straight birdies on holes 15 through 17.

On 15, a 189-yard par-three with water in play right, McNealy played a gutsy shot to the tucked right-front flag. His tee shot hit in the 4-foot gap between the flagstick and the edge of the green, carried past the flag, then rolled back, leaving a 7-foot putt for birdie that he dropped with conviction.

A scrambling birdie from the left greenside rough at 16, and another birdie on 17, after stuffing his approach to the elevated green to 2-1/2 feet, saw McNealy move to 4-under, where he finished after closing the round with a par at the par-five 18th hole for a back-nine 33 and a 4-under 68 final score.

McNealy showed his strength in his Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green and Strokes Gained: Approach The Green stats, where he posted numbers of 4.426 and 3.095, respectively; 3rd and 4th on the day. His Strokes Gained total was 3.965, tied for 8th for the field.

Even a low-key early-season event like the Safeway Open represents a tough transition when making the jump from amateur to professional competition, and if the youngster from Stanford carries on as he began today, it seems a pretty good bet that he will make the kind of mark on the PGA Tour that he did in his Stanford career.