Maverick McNealy on his Ryder Cup snub and the 2025 majors stat that made him proud
Alex Goodlett
Given how he's started 2026, Chris Gotterup has emerged as the biggest 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup team "snub" by American captain Keegan Bradley. At the time, though, Gotterup was not even among the top 16 players in the points ranking despite his late-summer push.
The far bigger snub was Maverick McNealy, who sat at 10th in the standings when the roster was finalized. Three of Bradley's captain's picks, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Ben Griffin, were ranked seventh, eighth and ninth, and all three had strong cases. At 10th, McNealy was passed over, as was Bradley himself at 11th, Brian Harman at 12th and Andrew Novak at 13th, in favor of Cameron Young, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns.
Having the benefit of hindsight is nice, but all McNealy has proven since is he absolutely belonged. He tied for 13th at the Procore in Napa in the fall and has kicked off 2026 with a T-24 at the Sony Open, a 10th-place finish at the Farmers and a T-13 at last week's Waste Management Phoenix Open. This week, he'll get another crack at Pebble Beach, a course he grew up playing and knows quite well.
McNealy joined us on this week's episode of The Loop podcast and shed some light on the disappointment of not being at Bethpage Black.
"It was a huge buildup throughout the year, it's all anyone talked about," said McNeal, who made just over $8.3 million on the course in 2025. "To be honest, I kind of wish I hadn't focused on it as much."
It was that hyper-focus on making the team that made the snub all the more painful. Particularly after a grueling stretch of golf to close the year.
"It wasn't really the flavor I wanted to hav in my mouth after the best year of my career," he said. "I needed to be incredibly proud that through the BMW [Championship] I was 10th in the FedEx Cup. That's an awesome year on points. And I am really proud of that."
Alas, it still wasn't quite enough, even in a year where he made all four cuts at the majors, another stat he was quite proud of. To hear our full interview with McNealy, where he details the call he received from Bradley, please have a listen below, and like and subscribe to The Loop wherever you get your podcasts: