For four decades, Mac McGee has been a staple of beginner golf. But like many older people, he couldn’t begin to put a number on the beginning he did.
“I’ve played in I don’t know how many tournaments in my career,” said McGee, “but it’s been a lot.”
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McGee, 72, has maintained a competitive-yet-gentle presence throughout, giving back to the game with the grace with which he plays. As McGee will play in the US Senior Challenge next week, a tournament in which he has competed many times, he will also receive the Challenge Man of the Year award, given annually to someone whose life has been exemplary in family, business and golf.
Mac McGee is the 2026 Challenge Man of the Year for senior golf.
“I think it’s great to be recognized by your peers – you don’t really know, you don’t try to achieve these things I don’t think,” he said. “You just go and play the game and enjoy it and try to convey something. . . . I know that there are people who think that they put some names and choose me and I am honored and humbled by it.”
In addition to putting together the US Senior Challenge team each year, McGee, from Midland, Texas, always does what he can to help the tournament.
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As a player, McGee has found success both nationally and close to home. He is a five-time club champion at Midland Country Club but has also earned two USGA championships. He competed in the 2014 US Mid-Amateur at the age of 60 and ten years later, he played the US Senior Amateur as a 70-year-old. Each time, he was among the oldest competitors in the field, speaking to his ability to maintain his game at a level where he could not compete with younger players.
Perhaps his most notable accomplishment, at least nationally, was winning the 2012 Porter Cup.
McGee, a native Texan, devoted much of his attention as a young man to fast-paced sports like basketball and football and attended Texas Tech on a basketball scholarship. Since 1978, he has worked in the oil and gas industry and founded McGee Drilling Corporation, which he is still active in, in 1990.
Still, McGee has had a club in his hand since he was a little boy. When he was 10 years old, his father bought him a set of clubs after McGee constantly pestered him to take him to the golf course when he played with his friends on the weekend.
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Although McGee showed sympathy for the talent in the game, he admits that he also got angry when things didn’t go well for him. McGee vividly remembers his father picking up his clubs after watching him throw a golf club on the driving range after hitting a bad shot. The message was clear: That’s no way to play.
The lesson stuck with him throughout his life, and no doubt contributed to the grace for which he is known.
“I think the biggest success I have contributed to this game is the way I tried to play with respect for the game and respect my opponents,” he said, thinking about the Challenge Man of the Year award. “Trying to stay calm when you’re playing badly, and it’s easy to stay calm when you’re playing well but that’s part of the challenge of the game is keeping things together when things don’t go your way. If I’ve contributed anything, I think that’s one of my biggest achievements.”
This article first appeared in Golfweek: Texan Mac McGee named top golfer Challenge Man of the Year
