Max Homa, Everyone's Favorite Golfer, Just Keeps On Winning

Orlando Ramirez. Getty Images.

The duality of Max Homa was on full display this weekend in his old SoCal stomping grounds. On Friday, while very much in contention at beefy Torrey Pines, Homa volunteered as the guinea pig for an exciting new broadcast initiative: on-course interviews, during competition. They've been a thing on the DP World Tour for years now, but Homa's willingness to walk-and-talk the CBS crew through his adventures on the 13th-hole—a long wait in the fairway, a rules situation, a subtle jab at Patrick Reed's active fingers, and eventually a grindy par—confirmed what we've already known about Homa: that he's a different type of pro golfer, the rare elite athlete that gladly lets fans into his often-frenetic brain. He's cool. Unassuming. Downright funny. Those qualities endeared him to Golf Twitter long before he blossomed into the cold-blooded killer that marched to his sixth PGA Tour victory on Saturday.

"It's a ton of patience and a lot of confidence," Homa said of his nails performance. "Obviously there's a ton of great players. That board was stacked. But I just had to know, it's obviously a hard golf course. I just have to keep hitting good shots and keep hitting good putts, and you're gonna make bogeys and you're going to make birdies. Winning takes a lot of luck, but it just takes a lot of patience and knowing that, in these final rounds, 18 holes is a marathon and a lot of stuff goes on."

Homa fought off tears in his post-round interview—this was his first win as a father, and both his wife, Lacey, and son, Cam, were on-site—but he had no time for mid-round chats during Saturday's final round. He was too busy plotting his way around one of the harder (and, it should be said, frustratingly unimaginative) courses on the PGA Tour and, in the process, steadily closing the gap on 54-hole leader Sam Ryder. Homa found himself six back of the lead after Ryder steadied his looking-for-first-win nerves with an opening birdie, but the Valencia native quickly emerged as Ryder's chief challenger with four front-nine birdies. That's because Jon Rahm, hunting his third consecutive victory at his favorite golf course on the planet, faded from contention by playing his first six holes in three over. That qualified as a genuine shock given Rahm's recent dominance, a stark reminder of how unforgiving the South Course is to players not fully in control of their golf balls. 

Good thing Homa hardly missed a shot. 

The 32-year-old recent father turned in four-under 32 to get to 11 under and get within one of Ryder, who didn't have his best but held steady at 12 under thanks to a few fortunate breaks and rock-solid short putting. Homa hijacked control of the tournament by carving a long iron into the tricky par-3 11th and hearting a 13-footer to even the score.

But a Homa bogey at 14 gave Ryder the solo lead once again, and Homa risked falling two back after a tentative birdie putt at the par-4 15th. But Homa poured that par effort in, too, setting the stage for the pivotal flip in momentum. 

Fresh off his par save, Homa took dead-aim with a 4-iron he launched directly into the setting sun. The only question was whether it'd carry the front-left bunker. It did, finishing 16 feet from the pin—which, amazingly, was the closest of all 73 tee shots into the 16th green on Saturday. His left-to-right birdie effort hopped around on the poa annua putting surface but found its way to the bottom of the cup, bringing him to dozen under. 

One hole behind, Ryder was unraveling. A flared tee shot found a gnarly lie in the rough, so thick that he couldn't advance his second to the green. A mishit wedge flew the green and led to a double bogey that torpedoed his chances. 

It's hard to swallow right now, but that's what I'm telling myself—I'll be able to build on that," Ryder told reporters after the round. "And I really feel like playing with some of the best players in the world, I hit a lot of. really good shots."

Keegan Bradley clawed to within one of Homa's lead with a birdie of his own on 17, and a dead-center tee shot on the par-5 finisher put a major pep in the New Englander's step. Find the green, two-putt for birdie and he'd have headed straight to the driving range for a potential playoff. But he yanked his second into a bunker long-left and was unable to get up and down, ensuring Homa would have a one-shot lead as he played the last. 

"That was so fun," Bradley said. "I love this course, I love coming here. Like when I think of the PGA TOUR, I think of Torrey Pines. My first time I saw Tiger I was on that putting green and I just love this tournament. Man, that was close."

Homa turned to his trusty cut off the tee—he told CBS during that Saturday interview that his caddie/best friend Joe Greiner will only let him hit one draw a day, if that—and pumped one down the center. He didn't hesitate to pull out fairway wood, opting to launch one over the pond that guards the typical front-left pin location. A gutsy play, for sure, but Homa had zero intention of laying up even with the lead. Carrying himself with quiet confidence, he flushed his second just over the green and, for good measure, added a final birdie to seal the two-shot victory. 

His final-round 66 tied Bradley for the low round of the day, and Homa now has five victories over the last 23 months—four of which have come in California. He has blossomed into one of the proper closers in world golf, and he's done so on some of the tougher layouts on tour. He's won at Quail Hollow, which has hosted a recent major and Presidents Cup. He's won at Riviera, arguably the finest test on the PGA Tour. He won a war of attrition on a soaked TPC Potomac. And now he's won at Torrey Pines, firmly in the U.S. Open rotation. 

Which brings us to our next point: the majors. For all of Homa's recent successes, he'd be the first to tell you that his major championship record is bitterly disappointing. He's made just five cuts in 13 career major starts and is still searching for his first major top-10. That's increasingly hard to fathom after another sparkling Sunday that saw him carve his way around a major-caliber venue. He'll get four chances to rectify that poor history this year. And one of those four, the U.S. Open, will be held at Los Angeles Country Club, where he still holds the course record with a 61 he shots in the Pac 12 championships. Over the past two years, Homa has proven he's far more than just the Twitter Guy. These next six months present an opportunity to take yet another step, to prove he belongs in the same tier as the Rorys and the JTs and the Rahms. The way he played Saturday—and, perhaps more tellingly, the way he carried himself—suggests he's more than ready. 

"It's a beautiful game. Sometimes you're just one good swing thought away from being good again. it took a litlte bit of time and a lot of great people in my life—my wife, my caddie Joe, the people who have been there through the ugly. I don't know if I coulda told you when I was in Brownville, Texas that I'd win six PGA Tour events, but that's what I was dreaming of. But a lot of hard work goes into that, and I'm very proud of myself and proud of my team."