Why Mac O’Keefe is front-runner for the Golden Stick Award
By Zach Carey | Jan 20, 2025
Mac O’Keefe’s lefty low-to-high rips were made to count for two points. He and the 13-yard two-point line in the Lexus Championship Series are a match made in heaven.
Of players in the 2025 Champ Series, O’Keefe has the most career goals (28) from 13-yards or beyond in the PLL. He’s scored on 20.9% of his 134 shots from that range, which is fourth among the 52 players suiting up at The St. James in February.
O’Keefe’s addition to the Utah Archers roster is a godsend for a team that needed more offensive firepower. In the 2024 Championship Series, the club scored the fewest two-point goals in the tournament (12, less than half of the Philadelphia Waterdogs’ league-leading 26). O’Keefe’s threat from behind the arc should immediately make Utah more dangerous. Playing alongside longtime teammate and one of the best feeders on the planet in Grant Ament, he’ll be a nightmare for five short sticks to stop.
“He’s the easiest guy in the world for me to play with,” Ament said. “I’m super excited for him to get out there.”
O’Keefe arriving at the Champ Series should send a shiver down the spine of opposing defenses. Only three players have hit more twos than O’Keefe has since his PLL debut in 2021: Romar Dennis, Marcus Holman and Mike Chanenchuk. Shrinking the distance he has to shoot from to score two by two feet means his deadly step-down will be that much more valuable.
“You’ve seen the success that Romar Dennis has had in this format,” Ament said, referencing Dennis’ 38-point, Golden Stick-winning performance in 2023. “You’ve seen the success some of these stretch shooters have had, how big of an impact they can have on a game, and how much stress they can put on a defense. I’m really excited for Mac to be able to showcase his skills as, in my opinion, the best pure shooter in the world.”
O’Keefe projects to be one of the focal points of the Utah offense. The most-used players in the past two Champ Series averaged roughly eight shots per game. O’Keefe could well exceed that as the Archers look for him to unload from deep.
“He can shoot as many damn times as he wants,” head coach Chris Bates said. “In my mind, he’s always open. And he should think of himself as always open. And feeders should think of him as always open. He’s got that unique skill set that, if his hands are there, you want to try to hit him.”
Watching how Bates, Ament and the complex Archers’ offensive scheme generate shots for O’Keefe will be a treat. His hands are so good and his release is so quick that it takes only a split second for him to receive a pass and fire it to an upper corner.
Even if teams try to run him off the two-point line, O’Keefe is more than a catch-and-shoot threat. And Utah is banking on him creating for himself at times.
“He can use his shot fakes to create dodges for him,” Ament explained. “He’s not the most dynamic guy. But, when he’s winding up, it’s hard not to jump as a defender. I think he does a great job of using shot fakes and different approaches to his advantage and I think we’re going to see that on display throughout the entire Champ Series.”
In 2024, O’Keefe scored the sixth-most unassisted goals in the league. He converted more unassisted looks than elite dodgers including Michael Sowers, Asher Nolting, Matt Rambo and Rob Pannell. Some of those were garbage goals – O’Keefe is one of the niftiest players when the ball hits the turf near the net. But many were a result of the Penn State product exploiting the magnetism of his stretch shooting capability to sneak past defenders.
The biggest obstacle in the way of O’Keefe’s campaign for the Golden Stick Award (given to the Championship Series’ leader in scoring points) is the reality that opponents might decide to take him out of the offensive equation entirely.
“More often than not, you’re probably going to see a guy shutting Mac off,” Ament said.
That might mean O’Keefe’s run at the Golden Stick takes a hit. But it would be a coup for Utah’s offense.
“That means there’s a guy taken out of the slide rotation,” Ament said. “It’s a lot easier to score in 4-on-4 than in 5-on-5. So, I think he’s going to force defenses’ hands in this and it’s gonna allow more dodging space for guys like me and Matt [Moore], Aughy [Ryan Aughavin], Ryan [Ambler] and [Jack] VanO[verbeke].
O’Keefe alone changes the Archers’ offensive dynamic and, with it, Utah’s odds of claiming its first Champ Series crown. Utah’s offense has been at its best during the regular season when it can force defenses to pick their poison. With O’Keefe joining the roster for the Champ Series, that’s becoming a reality in Sixes, as well, as the combination of O’Keefe, Ament and Moore provides real star power on the Archers’ offense.
Should Utah lift its third trophy in two years this February, it’ll be because O’Keefe hoisted the Golden Stick alongside his teammates.
