Max Homa was ‘so broken’, but now a more serious question looms

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The ‘question’ in the headline is the same one pinging around in the gallery at Quail Hollow. And the same one popping off on social media. And perhaps even the same one circling Max Homa’s head.

Is he back? 

Friday’s round of 64 at the PGA Championship is the perfect ember for that smokey question. Homa has felt “close” for a while, despite the five missed cuts that have piled up this year. He’s looked close in person, too. During practice rounds at the WM Phoenix Open in February, he said he’s never driven it better. But when the gun went off for the first round, he shot five over. 

“It’s just a hard game,” Homa said on Friday, moments after making it look particularly easy. 

During the second round, he drove it to a foot on the par-4 14th, he chipped in for birdie on 18, he made 100 feet of putts and bested his Thursday back-nine score by nine. Sixty-four was his best career tally in a major by three and his best score, period, since August 2023. 

“It’s what a guy like him, who has been struggling, needs,” said his caddie of less than two months, Bill Harke. “You need that one round to tell you ‘you’re back.’ You can’t have your agent, your caddie, your wife and everybody telling you ‘you’re back.’ You have to know it.”

We are going to learn how well he knows it these next two days. At five under, Homa has earned the spotlight of an afternoon weekend tee time, just three shots off the lead. It took two days of good work in Charlotte, and a helluva lot more at home. 

Homa says he’s hit “an absurd amont of golf balls” in the past seven months, feeling “so broken” and searching for a swing feeling from his peak, when he was one of the 10 best players on the planet. For the past year, that feeling has been stuck exclusively in his memory, and it wasn’t until about three weeks ago that he decided to get real about it with his swing coach, John Scott Rattan. “I said, ‘I think I should swing it like this.’” Homa recalled. “And he said, OK, show me. And I showed him. And he said, OK, let’s mold off of that, let’s make that the model.”

The model looks really good up close. Homa hits it low and striking, soft fades that start left and gently move back to center. They’re easy to follow off the big white oaks of Quail Hollow. And yet, the model is still so new. Homa brought in Rattan during the offseason, while also changing equipment companies. (With hindsight, he said he wouldn’t recommend that new-coach, new-clubs combo.) Then his longtime caddie and friend, Joe Greiner, elected to move on in March before the weariness of this journey — from World No. 5 to outside the top 70 in 12 months — impacted their relationship. Homa called up legendary caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay for a recommendation on whom to lean on as a looper, and Harke was the first to come to mind. 

Harke’s a golf nut who knows the difference between a MacKenzie and a Raynor. He’s worked as a swing instructor in the Bay Area in between caddying stints on Tour. On Friday he was quick to take zero credit for Homa’s success, but Homa disagrees. “Bill is really amazing at the psychology of golf and talking to me and keeping me positive when I start to go a little dark,” he said. 

Their first round together was a 76 at the Valero, but their second tournament together was a T12 finish at the Masters, ensuring Homa will get invited back next year. (T13 wouldn’t have done it, and he was well aware.)

Homa then finished 70th out of 72 at the RBC Heritage and, after starting 66-68 at last week’s Truist, failed to break par over the weekend. Such is the chief struggle of this game. Clawing your way out of the valley will not be linear, and even that truism can be hard to explain for one of the most eloquent talkers on Tour. But Homa let out a very simple tease for the press on Friday afternoon. He said the impressive Masters performance was “smoke and mirrors,” but the T30 finish in Philadelphia last week was the first time he started to feel like “the old me.” For the first time in a long time, his game felt sustainable. Solid enough to pack it in the travel case and bring it down to Charlotte without much worry.

“All these guys when you’re in a rut, you gotta go through that part first, right?” Harke said, proving Homa correct about that psychology bit. 

“You gotta start admitting to yourself that you know you’re getting better and then you can take the next step to being better. Everybody’s telling them he’s close for months now. He’s got to tell himself that, right? A round like today is a type of round that he’s going to take to heart. Hopefully he realizes he is back.”

We’ll find out more Saturday.