Did fan’s cocktail cause Max Homa’s comically bad lie at PGA?

The 2025 PGA Championship was a bizarre one. It featured a chorus of complaints about playing conditions, mud balls and bad lies from the pros playing at Quail Hollow. One week later, the weird stories — and bad breaks — continue to be revealed. The latest involves fan favorite Max Homa and a comically bad lie that one fan claims his transfusion cocktail caused.

Here’s what you need to know.

Max Homa’s Sunday PGA swoon

Homa’s long stretch of on-course struggles are well known at this point. Just this season, Homa recorded five consecutive missed cuts from the WM Phoenix Open in February through the Valero Texas Open in April.

Then Homa’s longtime caddie Joe Greiner decided to end their working relationship just before the Masters, which Homa confirmed was “not my choice.”

But at what seemed like his lowest moment, Homa showed some life at Augusta, finishing T12, his best result in any tournament since last May.

Then at the 2025 PGA Championship, Homa shot a blistering second-round 64 that launched him into contention at five under.

The good news was short-lived. The six-time PGA Tour winner followed that up going 76-77 on the weekend to finish T60.

Homa’s horrible break and Reddit user’s claim

Homa’s final-round 77 at Quail Hollow was particularly ugly, featuring seven bogeys and two double bogeys. There’s little doubt Homa faced a large share of bad lies and breaks over his final 36 holes at the PGA Championship.

But one bad break in particular stands out.

On his final hole of the tournament, the treacherous par-4 18th, Homa lost his drive into the right rough near a grove of trees.

Quail Hollow’s 18th squeezed a ton of double bogeys out of the field during PGA week. But most of those were to blame on the creek that runs along the left side of the fairway and green. Not to mention mud balls acquired in the 18th fairway.

But when Homa walked up to where his drive had landed, he found a very different form of trouble: his ball had come to rest at the bottom of a large nest of pine straw.

The lie was so bad it begged the question if there had been human intervention. And according to a Reddit user’s post this week, there had been.

On Wednesday, Reddit user @bravemanafish posted two photos of Homa staring at his horrible lie on 18. He also included a surprising, though unconfirmed, confession.

According to the poster, he had created the nest of pine straw as a makeshift cup holder for his transfusion cocktail. Then he’d watched in horror as Homa’s drive found its way into the middle of it.

“I was sitting by the 18th fairway at Quail. I had made a little nest out of the pine straw so my transfusion didn’t tip over on the slope,” @bravemanafish wrote on Reddit. “Max Homa’s drive landed in my drink spot and he had a terrible lie for his second shot. The look on his face hurt my heart.”

In a second post, he expressed more remorse for his alleged interference.

“I kept mouthing ‘I’m sorry’ to his caddie Bill Harke, but I don’t think they understood how upset I was.”

We can’t say for sure whether this is true, but the user’s photos clearly showed Homa at Quail Hollow in the clothes he wore on Sunday at the PGA.

And the story also lines up with Homa’s play on the hole, according to a digital representation of his scorecard on PGAChampionship.com.

Whether or not Homa’s bad lie was due to the fan’s cocktail, there is no doubt he got a horrible break.

The popular pro hacked out from there and ended up with a bogey 5.

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