Tiger Woods remembers meeting an infant Maverick McNealy, who was already swinging a plastic golf club at his family home in the San Francisco Bay Area, as a Stanford student in the mid-1990s. Woods was an elite amateur golfer at the time, but the memory endures in his mind (McNealy’s father Scott is a proud Stanford alum), as Woods reminisced Sunday from the CBS broadcast booth at The Genesis Invitational.

Sunday afternoon, McNealy nearly won the Woods-hosted event in dramatic comeback fashion.

McNealy finished runner-up at The Genesis Invitational, the season’s third Signature Event, on the strength of a final-round, 8-under 64 at Torrey Pines’ South Course (the day’s low round by two shots) to finish at 11-under total, one stroke back of winner Ludvig Åberg.

The stable of players at 3-under into Sunday, five off the 54-hole lead, included Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, along with McNealy. Scheffler (66) factored down the stretch, but it was McNealy who had the best shot of that esteemed chasing contingent.

“Scott Stallings texted me last night, he was like, ‘Don't be afraid of a hot start.’ You're right, get off to a hot start and you never know what's going to happen, and was swinging really well,” McNealy said afterward. “It was really fun. It's really fun when the ball's coming off exactly like you want when you're standing over a putt and you feel like it's just going to go in. It's one of those things; you get on a roll, you know it's going to come to an end at some point, but you just want to extend it as much as possible.”

McNealy entered Sunday in a share of eighth place, five back of 54-hole leader Patrick Rodgers, and contention seemed far away after he missed the green at the opening hole and sent his pitch shot well past the hole. But he drained a 38-footer to save par, then went on a birdie blitz with nine circles in his next 12 holes, including five straight (Nos. 2-6) and three straight (Nos. 9-11). At one point on the final nine, McNealy led the field by three strokes, a startling development considering he trailed seven players into Sunday.

But McNealy gave Åberg an opening with a bogey on the par-4 14th, missing a wedge short into a greenside bunker, and he closed with four consecutive pars. One of those pars was otherworldly, as he choked down on a mid-iron to punch out from a gnarly lie at the par-4 17th, then got up and down from 120 yards. One of those pars was a bit angsty, as he missed the fairway wide right at the reachable par-5 18th, was forced to lay up and couldn’t get up and down. Nonetheless, it was a sterling week for the sixth-year TOUR pro, who broke through for his first TOUR title at The RSM Classic just three months ago.

McNealy holds the Stanford record for career scoring average (70.13); Woods is fourth at 70.96. McNealy won 11 times at Stanford, matching the record of Woods and Rodgers for most wins in Stanford men’s golf history. There’s a unique tie that binds the lives and careers of Woods and McNealy, and it nearly intersected in storybook fashion Sunday at The Genesis.

The silver lining for McNealy, a licensed pilot who flew himself to Torrey Pines for this week’s event: he should have plenty more chances to receive a winner’s handshake from the 82-time TOUR champion. (The Genesis Invitational will return to The Riviera Country Club in 2026; the event was temporarily relocated to Torrey Pines in the wake of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.)

“I thought I needed probably one more (birdie), but that being said, you have no idea,” McNealy said afterward. “You miss a fairway out here, you're almost chipping out. So I thought I might need 13(-under); I thought 11 or 10 might be good enough. You don't really know.

“I was just trying to hit really good golf shots, keep putting at good speed and give myself a chance. Really proud of the effort.”