Iowa men’s golfer Mac McClear paced the Hawkeyes in their first stroke-play tournament of the 2022 spring season.

The junior tied for ninth place, carding a 13-under-par total of 203 at the Puerto Rico Classic Feb. 13-15.

Since the start of the 2021 spring season, McClear has played in all 12 of the Hawkeyes’ stroke play events, finishing in the top 10 in five of those tournaments — including two victories and a runner-up showing. The reigning Big Ten individual medalist has concluded only three of those events outside of the top 25 in that span.

During his freshman year in 2019-20, McClear only played in four of Iowa’s six stroke play tournaments and did not record a top-25 finish.

The 2021 All-Big Ten first-team selection pointed to the COVID-19 hiatus as a turning point in his career. The pandemic cut the 2020 spring season short and canceled the entire fall 2020 slate.

“I think COVID actually helped,” McClear told The Daily Iowan Feb. 18. “I wasn’t playing great, obviously, before that. It gave me a real good chance to kind of reset and kind of reevaluate everything and get on the right track going forward… [I worked on] just kind of swing stuff. I kind of got into some bad habits and during the time off I was able to kind of ungrain those habits and regain the ones I wanted.”

In fall 2019, McClear’s 75.75 18-hole scoring average ranked fifth on the Hawkeyes. He has dropped that average by over four shots since the COVID-19 restart for a team-leading 71.5 average in the last 12 events.

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Iowa head coach Tyler Stith noticed McClear’s improvement in his physical and mental game after he returned to campus after the COVID-19 pause.

“All areas of his game have improved and he’s a really confident player, sure of himself,” Stith said. “He understands his strengths and he’s got a very high golf IQ. He’s got all the skills that you need to be an elite golfer.”

However, McClear did experience a lull in results this fall — by his standards. He averaged 72.7 shots per round and finished with just one top-10 result in four events with no top-five showings.

Even as he struggled, Stith was impressed by his No. 1 player’s consistency and fight.

“You’re just not going to be on top of your game all the time,” Stith said. “With his schedule, any college golfer that plays at a high level, you play almost 12 months out of the year, so at some point, you’re going to struggle. And the difference now is when [McClear] struggles he’s still right around even-par. His freshman year when he struggled, he would shoot in the high 70s. His game has just gotten that much better.”

When McClear’s driver, irons, and wedges are all working for him at the same time, he produces similar scores to his first two rounds of the Puerto Rico Classic — a 3-under-par 69 and a 2-under-par 70.

When his putter gets hot, McClear said, the result is an 8-under-par round of 64 on the final day of the tournament to vault from a tie for 24th into a tie for ninth. McClear birdied ten of his 18 holes during the final round on his way to the third-lowest single round in Iowa men’s golf history.

“I definitely putted really well,” McClear said. “Could have been my Iowa golf career-best putting day. That helps no matter what. There wasn’t a huge difference in the ball-striking, but yeah, just kind of making putts, getting that momentum going, and things can take off pretty quickly from there.”

While McClear’s 20 birdies for the event tied winner Chris Gotterup’s total, Gotterup didn’t make a single bogey. McClear tallied five bogeys and a double-bogey over the three rounds.

As a result of his win, Gotterup received an invitation to the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open, played at the same course as the collegiate event, from March 3-6.

Although McClear would’ve loved to receive the invite, he’s confident the Puerto Rico Open won’t be his only opportunity to play in a professional golf event.

“Sure, that would have been nice,” McClear said of playing in the Puerto Rico Open. “But there’ll be plenty more opportunities for that.”