At the age of 13, Maverick McNealy became the Stanford men’s club champion — a feat he accomplished two more times. So it only made sense for Stanford men’s golf coach Conrad Ray to offer the Portola Valley native a spot on the team.

“There was no way I was going to turn that down,” said McNealy, whose mother earned an undergraduate degree at Stanford, while his father attended business school on The Farm. “When I got into Stanford, that was it for me.”

The 19-year-old sophomore has no regrets. Nor should he.

Last week, McNealy tied a Stanford record set by Tiger Woods by shooting 61 in the final round of the Pac-12 Championships en route to medalist honors with a four-day total of 18-under par — 10 strokes ahead of the runner-up.

“That was the best round of my life,” McNealy said. “I drove the ball awesome and I hit every trajectory that I envisioned, landed on every target and I had the best putting round of my life. Everything seemed to fall into place.”

Just as important to him, the Cardinal overcame a 9-shot deficit to win the back-to-back Pac-12 titles for the first time in program history.

“The fun fact is if my score had been thrown out, if I had for some reason been disqualified or hadn’t played the final round, we still would have won by four (strokes),” McNealy said. “It was my favorite day as a Stanford Cardinal.”

Two days later, McNealy became the fifth Cardinal to be named Pac-12 men’s golfer of the year.

And the accolades continue to pile up almost as quickly as birdies. On Wednesday, McNealy made the cut as one of three finalists for the Ben Hogan Award, which honors the outstanding amateur collegiate golfer.

“I’m just very humbled,” said McNealy, who will be joined by Washington senior Cheng-Tsung Pan and Arizona State junior Jon Rahm for a banquet a banquet on May 18 at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, where the winner will be announced. “The list of names of people that have been finalists and people that have won that award is amazing.”

The ascension to elite status in the collegiate ranks, with a NCAA Division I-best five victories this year, can be attributed to his putter.

“I’m about three to four shots better per round on the greens,” McNealy said. “And that’s really the difference between last year and this year, between 25th place and first place.”

The 6-foot-1 golfer out of Harker Prep in San Jose, where he was a two-time West Bay Athletic League champion, qualified for the U.S. Open last year, where he missed the cut at the historic Pinehurst No. 2 course in North Carolina.

“It was unbelievable,” McNealy said. “Just watching and seeing how everyone operated during the practice rounds and then really putting my game up to one of the sternest tests in golf imaginable was really fun.”

The Management Science and Engineering major, though, has no intention of turning pro anytime soon — or maybe at all.

“I’m going to get my degree for sure after four years and make that my No. 1 priority,” McNealy said. “And then after my senior year, I’m going to see if golf is the profession I want to go into, or if I want to go into the business world. We’ll see. A lot changes in two years, so I’m just going to keep my options open and make sure I have a very, very solid fall-back option.”

Email Vytas Mazeika at vmazeika@dailynewsgroup.com; follow him at Twitter.com/dailynewsvytas.