McInerney claims first AJGA invitational victory

Earlier this year, A.J. McInerney had a little back trouble. Two bulging disks, to be precise, midway through the boys high school golf season last spring. He got the problem treated while sitting out for six weeks.

From that point forward, you'd never know the Coronado High School senior ever had a problem. He took second at the state tournament in leading the Cougars to a second straight state title. He then had a productive summer on the national junior circuit.

And his fall has been even better.

Two weeks ago, the nationally renowned player and UNLV recruit notched one of his biggest junior victories, winning the American Junior Golf Association's Ping Invitational in Stillwater, Okla. He shot 1-under 71 in the final round of the 54-hole tournament. In windy, chilly and rain-swept conditions, McInerney finished as the only player under par with a 2-under 214 total for a two-shot win in a field of 45.

Oddly enough, he said that success stemmed from a disappointing weekend at the U.S. Amateur in August.

"I ended up missing the cut by one stroke, which was pretty disappointing," McInerney said. "But I took a lot of positives from it. I sat down with my (personal) coach, Trevor Derrheim, and we talked about everything that happened over the summer. We decided to try a few swing changes.

"I worked on (the changes) for about a month, then went to Oklahoma for the last big (junior) tournament of the year, and I ended up winning, which was great."

The speedy results from the swing changes were a pleasant surprise.

"I was pretty excited," he said. "I knew I needed to make some changes, but I didn't want to do it over the summer. I had about a month to work with it in September. My swing felt great, and now I'm pretty excited for my senior year."

He got another reason to be excited last week: He was named a Rolex First Team Junior All-American by the AJGA.

"Starting this year, one of my main goals was to be ranked in the top five in the country," he said. "So winning the Ping and getting into the top five is pretty exciting for me, getting one of my goals."

Now he gets to focus on something he really likes -- team goals. He'll spend the next few months gearing up to help Coronado pursue a third straight state crown, along with his second individual crown, as he was medalist his sophomore year. He's honing his game pretty much every day on Coronado's home course at Anthem Country Club -- "We're treated pretty well up here. It's nice," he said -- and he plans to bulk up a bit, too.

"I'm going to try to put on some weight, put on some muscle," said McInerney, who stands 6 feet 2 inches and weighs 175 pounds. "Then I have a tournament in February, the HP Invitational in Texas, that'll be the next junior event. Then the high school season -- try to get the next state title at Coronado.

"High school golf and college golf are all about the team," he continued, giving credit to Cougars coach Joe Sawaia for imparting the team-first attitude. "He's been a really big influence on me in that aspect. It doesn't matter if I shoot 65. It's about the team score in the end. If we do what we aim to do as a team, everybody will accomplish what they want to accomplish individually."

In fact, McInerney said he gets more out of team victories than individual wins.

"When we won state my sophomore year, I won the individual title, and that felt nice," he said. "But to be honest, when all is said and done, and we celebrated, it was as a team. That's more exciting, more fulfilling than winning it by yourself."

He'll get more of that team atmosphere next year, when he heads to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to play for Dwaine Knight, in a program that perennially contends for conference, regional and national titles and won the NCAA championship in 1998. While McInerney, who boasts a 4.4 weighted grade-point average, has had no shortage of scholarship offers to continue his golf career, the team atmosphere Knight has cultivated is what made him decide to stay home and play for the Rebels.

"My final three choices were UNLV, Stanford and San Diego," he said. "Part of me did want to get away from home, but UNLV was my first visit. I went to visit the other schools, but I still felt more comfortable with UNLV. The players there have got a lot of heart and want to win, and that's the kind of team you want to be a part of. I just knew UNLV was the place."

And he's expecting more great things to come as part of Knight's renowned program.

"I really like Coach Knight. He's a great coach, and he's really well-respected," McInerney said. "He'll be able to take my game to the next level. And I just really like all the guys on the team. I'm really excited to get going there, and hopefully we'll bring another national title back to UNLV."