First and foremost, Maya and I celebrated our 1st anniversary in style, having our wedding celebration a year after we eloped. It was so special to be with friends and family… After which we spent a few days in Hawaii on our honeymoon. My 7th Birdies season kicked off in Hawaii the week of Dec 30. I wonder if I’m going to have to declare residency here!
But two weeks before that, I hit my final shot of the 2024 season, which happened to be the final shot of the 2024 RSM Classic, and the last shot of my first PGA Tour Win! I holed a 5 foot, 5 inch birdie putt on the 72nd to win by one.
What an amazing way for TeamMav to finish the year!
But since the last update, here’s how we got there:
Fortinet Championship in Napa
A missed cut, mostly due to teeing off with a cracked driver head. I didn’t realize it was cracked until midway through the second round. Golf is easier from the fairway.
Sanderson Farms, Jackson, MS
Another missed cut, but this time was just from not executing a few key shots. I only hit one fairway on the eight par5 attempts, and shot myself in the foot by doing so. Pretty inauspicious start to the fall.
Shriners Open in Las Vegas:
Home tournament! Played in some of the strongest winds of the year, and had the “bad wave” that played about 4 shots harder than the other wave. Regardless, I hit the ball probably the best of my career to that point, and rode a final round 64 to a t16 finish!
Zozo in Japan:
This was a weird one. I played mediocre in round 1, only to wake up at 4am Friday morning with vertigo so bad that I couldn’t stand up out of bed without Maya’s help. I spent 6 hours in the hospital in Japan, and ultimately couldn’t make my tee time. It ended up being a very rare viral infection of my inner ear, luckily nothing chronic! There are a lot of things golfers can play through, and unfortunately the world spinning is not one of them.
WWT in Cabo:
Well, was hoping to get to take a few weeks off. But realized I still had work to do to lock up top 60. Diamanté is a ball-striker’s golf course, and my iron play was continuing to show signs of improvement. Unfortunately, Scout’s digestive tract was not. Despite not being able to hold any food in! He heroically lugged the bag around 72 holes to a t6 finish.
Butterfield in Bermuda:
A long ways off the East Coast, and another week of 30+ mph winds. Definitely had some ups and downs, but played really well in a steady gale on Sunday to climb back up to t17.
Follow me on Instragram!
And finally, I rolled into the RSM Classic
RSM Classic
A golf course that historically had my number. It requires strong ball-striking and a feel for icy Bermuda greens- two things that I have struggled with in the past.
Things got interesting off the bat, chipping in for eagle on my first par5 of the week, and riding that out to a career-low 62 in gusting winds (but based on the weather this fall, 30mph winds felt about normal). I played solid in rounds 2 and 3, entering the final round with a tie for the lead.
Things were going very smoothly, though it felt like the round was never going to end. I turned in 2 under par with a two-stroke lead, two birdies and 7 pars. Things only started to get interesting when a gust of wind carried my gap wedge over the green on 11, and I had to hole a putt from the fringe for par. I scrambled for a good double bunker par on 13, and the one uncommitted swing of the day on 14 cost me a bogey from the pine straw. At this point I had lost my two-stroke lead.
I hit a great 3wood onto the green on 15, and was left with a tricky 60 footer. I left it four feet short, and pulled the four-foot birdie putt. And when my birdie putt slid by on 16, things weren’t looking good, as two players had already passed me.
I hit an awesome 7i just behind the hole on 17, and to my surprise, saw that the leaderboard showed me in a four-way tie for the lead. The two leaders had both bogied 18, which was now playing into a cold southeasterly wind. I hit a great putt on 17 that just grazed the right edge, but walked to the 18th tee with a share of the lead.
A good drive later, I flushed a 6i from 185 yds (6i usually goes 200) that flew high starting at the left edge of the green. With that 11-o-clock wind, when the ball just started to fall to the right, I knew it had to be good. It ended up what looked like just a few feet short of the flag.
The crazy thing was that from when I hit that 6i, it only felt like a few seconds until I was standing over my putt. And before I knew it, the putt was a foot off my putter face, and I knew it was dead center. The only thing I remembered from that moment watching that ball roll towards the hole was thinking “oh my God, I just won”.
Boy am I glad those greens at Sea Island rolled true!!
CURRIKI UPDATE
Why we support Curriki
Thank you very much for following me on the Tour, for your generous support of Curriki and education. The Curriki team welcomes you to check your birdies accounts when you are making your year-end charitable contributions.
Here is how your support has helped Curriki’s achieve its goals for 2024:
Curriki Drives Innovation in Education
In 2024, Curriki released the Curriki Educational Experiences (C2E) standard, an approach that we believe will mold the way education content is created, shared, and delivered.
We will continue to strive for educational technologies that:
- Play on any device or browser.
- Support online and offline consumption.
- Deliver content to all the leading learning and content distribution platforms easily, consistently, and inexpensively.
Curriki’s authoring suite for education continues to supports 10s of thousands educators, and 100s of thousands students
The adoption of Curriki’s free and open authoring tool for education continued to increase as school districts, colleges and universities, and corporate education organizations across the world continue to embrace our approach to building and delivering great interactive learning experiences:
Create. Contribute. Publish.
Curriki Technology Leads to Accredited Curriculum in History!
With help from Curriki’s board member Mr. Phil Lebherz, Stand Together, and our advisor, Dr. Freedom Cheteni, a novel curriculum built with Curriki technologies was approved for high school credit in U.S. schools!
Instructional technologist of the future are trained in Curriki Technologies
Your contributions to Birdies for Education and generous contributions from the Lebherz Foundation and Oracle Gives helped us fund a pilot program where high school students are trained in Curriki instructional technologies to create and build meaningful and effective learning experiences.
Pictured is the cohort from Cristo Rey Academy San Diego, who are building digital, interactive courses using Curriki tools on subjects like history, cybersecurity and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
IN CLOSING
Please take this opportunity to review your birdies accounts. We welcome you to sign up to donate for “B7” at the same time. If you have any questions or need any assistance with the website or making your donations, please contact Karen Hallstein, khallstein@curriki.org, 1-408-655-0233.
Happy holidays, and best wishes for a prosperous new year!
Maverick