Weekly PGA Recap: Maverick Finds the Magic

This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.

There have been so many first-time winners on the PGA Tour this season that it finally had to become a topic on last week's RotoWire Rundown. The number reached a whopping 14 after last week.

Now there are 15.

And the only thing stopping that number from growing even larger is that the season is now over.

Maverick McNealy birdied the 18th hole on Sunday at Seaside on St. Simons Island, Ga., to capture The RSM Classic -- the final event of the 2024 PGA Tour season -- by one shot over a trio of golfers. In winning in his 142nd career Tour start, McNealy denied amateur sensation Luke Clanton from becoming the 15th first-time winner, along with recent first-time winner Nico Echavarria and a resurgent Daniel Berger. 

The RSM Classic now annually serves as the final chance for golfers to finish inside the top 125 in the point standings to keep or secure their Tour cards for next season. Berger and Henrik Norlander were the two who moved inside the threshold at the last possible moment. More on that in a moment.

Greatness had long been expected for the 29-year-old McNealy since ending his amateur days in 2017. We've gotten plenty of goodness, in more ways than one, but never greatness. He'd had two runners-up and six top-5s through the years.

"The cool thing about professional golf is that you have the chance to change your life any given week and it doesn't matter what happens the week before, two weeks before," the Stanford-educated McNealy told reporters in Georgia. "Rafa Campos is an amazing example of that. It takes all year to have a bad year and it takes one week to have a great year." 

McNealy had tied for sixth and for 17th in his past two starts, but he still wasn't expecting too much this week. (The quote that follows shows why golf prognosticating is sometimes so maddening and so dang hard. For all of us)

"This was a week I wasn't expecting to play well, to be honest," he said. "This is a golf course I haven't had much success on. It's a golf course that requires really good iron play and it's a golf course with really slick dormant Bermuda greens, which as a West Coast guy is not my most comfortable putting surface. I kind of came here with the attitude that I wanted to learn and figure out how to play here. Played so well on Thursday, it kind of affirmed all the work that our team's been putting in and the changes we made this year. Made the weekend a lot more exciting."

Exciting indeed, especially if you were on McNealy.

He now will get to play in the Masters for the first time, and will also be ion the 2025 season-opening Sentry, the last man into that field of 64 in early January. McNealy also finished 51st in the standings and inside the Next 10 (51st to 60th) that also landed him berths at early Signature Events at Pebble Beach and Riviera.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Luke Clanton
The Florida State junior -- we have to keep remembering that -- notched his second runner-up and third top-5 this season and just missed becoming another Nick Dunlap. As it is, he's the No. 1 amateur in the world. We should be seeing more of Clanton next season, even though he's back in school.

Nico Echavarria
Echavarria's runner-up, while disappointing with a final-hole bogey, resulted in his fourth top-10 of the season and third in his past four starts.

J.T. Poston
One of the fall winners, but not a first-time winner, Poston had a 64-63 weekend to zoom into a tie for fifth.

Mackenzie Hughes
Hughes tied for fifth, giving him four top-5 showings at The RSM. The other three were a win and two runners-up.

Michael Thorbjornsen
The rookie's tie for eighth moved him from 138th in the point standings to only 129th. But as the winner of PGA Tour University, the Stanford alum was already exempt for 2025.

Ludvig Aberg
In his first start in more than two months following knee surgery, the world No. 5 tied for 17th. His knee seems to be fine.

Ryan Moore
The veteran missed the cut to fall from 150th to 151st in the point standings and losing conditional status. Moore will fall under the past champions category in 2025.

FEDEXCUP STANDINGS

Two players moved inside the top 125 at The RSM and two players agonizingly fell out. Berger soared from 127th to 100th and Norlander used a T17 to inch up from 126th to 120th. Zac Blair and Wesley Bryan, who began the week 123rd and 125th, respectively, both missed the cut to fall out. Both will have 2025 conditional status (126th to 150th), which should generate each of them roughly 15 starts before the fall campaign.

The most drama-filled moment, as it often does, belonged to fan favorite Joel Dahmen. The darling of the Netflix series "Full Swing," Dahmen began the week 124th. After some very anxious moments, Dahmen tied for 35th to finish ... 124th.

On Friday, the wobbly putter stood over a must-make 5 ½-foot putt on his final hole just to make the cut. Obviously, it went in. On Sunday, he carded a 64 that included a front-9 30 with an eagle from the fairway. No putter needed.

Sam Ryder sweated out the weekend after a missed cut, wondering if beginning the week at 122nd would be enough. It was. He finished right on the number at 125th.

For Berger, the runner-up may very well signal a fully healthy return after he missed almost two years with injuries. This was his best finish since he won at Pebble Beach in 2021.

Here's how the standings looked at the end:

121. Alex Smalley
122. David Skinns
123. Sami Valimaki
124. Dahmen
125. Ryder
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126. Blair
127. Hayden Springer
128. Bryan
129. Michael Thorbjornsen
130. S.H. Kim

AON NEXT 10

This was important, to finish from 51st to 60th in the point standings, because it ensures entry the first two Signature Events next season. In other words, free money and FedExCup points, which help you get into more lucrative tournaments.

Kevin Yu, one of five first-time winners in the final seven events of the fall, tied for 11th to inch up from 61st to 58th. That knocked out Justin Rose, who chose to play on the DP World Tour after the playoffs and didn't make a single fall start in the States. It's remarkable he didn't fall out of the Next 10 until the last tournament.

Here's how the standings ended:

51. McNealy
52. Mackenzie Hughes
53. Patrick Rodgers
54. Echavarria
55. Harris English
56. Seamus Power
57. Ben Griffin
58. Yu
59. Tom Kim
60. Nick Taylor
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61. Lucas Glover
62. Rose
63. Mark Hubbard
64. Jake Knapp
65. Min Woo Lee

DP WORLD TOUR / AUSTRALASIA TOUR

The BMW Australian PGA Championship -- which was shortened to 54 holes because of heavy rain -- served as the season opener on the DP World Tour and was played just one week after the final event of the previous campaign. It was stunningly won by Australian Elvis Smylie by two shots over countryman and mentor Cameron Smith and came just a month after the 22-year-old's first pro win. He now gets immediate membership on the DP World Tour and has moved up to 253rd in the world. A true life-changing moment. 

ASIAN TOUR

Patrick Reed won for the first time in almost four years with a three-shot victory at the Hong Kong Open. He hadn't won anywhere, not even on LIV, since the Farmers Insurance Open in 2021. Reed is scheduled to play the next two events in Asia. He moved from 164th in the world rankings to 128th.