The Open 2017: Scott McNealy is the Maverick amateur with a billion reasons to resist joining the professionals

Flashback | Scott McNealy in 2014
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
John Huggan20 July 2017

One feature of every Open Championship is the presence of amateurs amid the predominately professional field.

On Thursday at Royal Birkdale, five of the 156 players are playing for pride rather than motivated by the cash on offer. Which is something one member of that elite quintet will do for the rest of his life, whether he eventually turns professional or not.

Maverick McNealy is that man. Exempt from qualifying because of his status as the world’s No1 amateur at the end of 2016, the Stanford University graduate is the son of Scott McNealy, a former co-founder of Sun Microsystems and, not coincidentally, a Silicon Valley billionaire.

All of which has left the younger McNealy with a big decision to make. Just as a fellow by the name of Jack Nicklaus - formerly a successful seller of insurance - once debated whether it was worth his talented while turning professional, McNealy has long tortured America’s golf media with a “will he or won’t he” saga. Will he take the plunge into the paid ranks? Or will he follow his father’s lead into the world of big-money commerce instead?

Right now, although he is still not committing himself one way or the other, it appears as if McNealy is edging towards life on the fairways.

“I am preparing as if I am going to turn pro after the Walker Cup in September,” he reveals. “I haven’t pulled the trigger on anything yet but that is the way I am thinking. I am very lucky, having gone to Stanford, to have two great options.

“I’ve played golf at a great level and had a great education. I loved what I did in school, I loved that work. But there are a lot of ways in which you can give back, whether that is in golf or the business world. I have just been figuring out the best way to do that.”

Still, should McNealy go the other way and don a suit rather than a golf shirt, it would seem a pity and, some may say, a waste of huge talent. The winner of 11 titles during his four-year stint at Stanford - the same as fellow Cardinal Tiger Woods - McNealy is clearly gifted. In addition he owns a refreshingly thoughtful perspective on many things.

“One of the most rewarding things in life is getting better at something,” he said. “For me, if my golf game ever got to the point where it wasn’t getting any better it would lose a lot of its appeal to me. Right now I feel like I have a lot of room to get better and possibly having a professional career would help me take my game to the next level. That’s really exciting and appealing to me.

“If I choose professional golf I would choose that indefinitely. I’d want to be the best I could be, be an ambassador for the game and help to grow the game. Whatever decision I make, I won’t look back and wish I had made the other one. There is no wrong decision as long as I am 100 per cent committed.”

All of which is for the future. For the next two days at least, this impressive young man has Royal Birkdale to worry about.

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