How do you prepare for your first masters? Maverick McNealy has a plan

Last year Maverick McNealy was around 102nd place in the world, a promising player on a tour full of you. He hadn’t won the PGA tour yet and when he saw Scottie Scheffler won another green jacket, he made himself a vow: Come to Augusta next year.

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“The champions last year were a difficult one to see for me because I wanted so much,” said McNealy this week about Yahoo Sports. “It’s always one of my favorite tournaments, and it just really annoys me that I didn’t have a T -shirt.”

So McNealy did what every good golfer from the 2020s does: at the beginning of the autumn season, teamed up with his team and created a plan. Your goals: go to the top 60 to qualify for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational. Go to the top 50 to qualify for the masters. And climb into the guard in Kapalua by winning a tournament.

The fall was decent, but not spectacular, and McNeals carefully relaxed plans came apart. With a tournament, the possibilities were to make his markings.

“We had one of the three blocked visit to Sea Island,” said McNealy, the location of the RSM Classic, the last tournament of the year. “It’s really just a Hail Mary Pass to try to make the last two locked. There was really only one position that would do it for us.”

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And then McNealy went out and finished one position first – and the whole world opened for him. He jumped until the 31st of the world and soon received this envelope that every golfer dreams of: an invitation to the masters.

“I am very much looking forward to experiencing just one of the cathedrals of the golf and seeing what the Masters is about,” says McNealy, who is now occupying the 16th place in the world. “It’s something I saw on TV, but I know that it will be even more astonishing personally, and I’m curious to see how I play the golf course.”

Since the invitation invited, McNealy has planned to look at old YouTube videos and worked on his shot -arsenal to prepare for the course. “Sometimes it is not super relevant to see a major 12 years ago because the game played differently and the course changed,” he says. “But the bones of (Augusta National) and the way it is played are really the same.”

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The invitations have the opportunity to play the course in advance, and he first opened it last Monday. “I look forward to expanding my field of vision for some of the short game recordings around the green,” he says. “I think there is a reason why a man like Jordan Spieth had much success in his first masters because he sees such recordings all the time.”

Working for McNeals favor: his put game. “I had some success with a fast, sloping green with a lot of break,” he says, “and I think really good speed control will help me to differentiate outside there.”

When he arrives in Augusta on Monday, McNealy will concentrate on his swing at the beginning of the week, and his putting and green reading, the closer he will get on Thursday.

“I will play nine every day and depending on which nine I want to see twice, I will do that,” he says. “I just want to make sure that I am not exaggerated and so excited in the first few days. Who wouldn’t want to play 18, 18, 18? Hopefully that’s not my only one, and I have a lot of cracks at this tournament.”

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He also plans to play in the Par-3 competition with his wife Maya, who is caddying for him for him. “I will be sensible with my energy over the course of the week because I know that it will be a really highly adjacent, high excitement and a fun week,” he says. “Make sure that I still have a lot in the tank in the tank for Saturday and Sunday when I need it. But it would definitely regret it to enjoy everything I could get out of my first masters.”

On the way he will avoid practicing areas that he and his team call the “Delta ticket switch”.

“The philosophy is, prepare as if they are in the top 10 and try to bring the ranking on the market, since these recordings are much more valuable than that if they are on the 55th place,” says McNealy.

Before he arrives in Augusta, however, there is the little matter of the Valero Texas Open this week. Some professionals do it to take the weekend free, but McNealy believes that he thrives with consistent activity.

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“There is nothing better than playing on a PGA Tour Setup in PGA Tour conditions to prepare for a big championship,” he says. “There is nothing better than competition to really reveal the loose nuts and screws that you have to tighten.” (After releasing a 4-below round, he was at T6, five strokes by Leader Sam Ryder.)

The numbers support McNeals believe in constant competition. His best results have come lately after playing for several weeks in a short episode. The RSM victory was his fifth tournament in six weeks; At the beginning of this year, he finished T9 and Solo second in the World Cup Open or Genesis, his third and fourth tournaments in a row on the west coast. The masters will fall in the third week of his current run.

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At the moment there is the Valero, and then he goes east to Augusta. At this point, he will be confronted before his first decisive decision of the week: which song, which he is rolling up for the first time as a player.

“My wife and I are on a Morgan Wallen -kick,” he laughs, “so it will probably be one of them. I’m pretty excited.”