Max Homa went from a $1.5 million PGA Tour payout to $400 in a Phoenix skins game.
Max Homa took home more than $1.5 million Saturday afternoon with his win in the Farmers Insurance Open, finishing with a birdie at Torrey Pines in San Diego to beat Keegan Bradley and a cast of other major champions and up-and-comers on the PGA Tour.
How did he celebrate? With another victory at a popular municipal golf course, albeit this one with a much smaller payout.
Homa, now a six-time winner on the PGA Tour who has amassed more than $4 million in earnings in five events this season, shot 5-under 67 on Monday at Papago Golf Club in Phoenix to win the stroke-play pot in a popular skins game.
His prize from Monday: $400.
Not that we need any more reason to love and laud Max Homa, but two days after he wins his 6th PGA Tour event he shows up at a municipal course in Phoenix to play a weekly skins game. This is grass roots stuff and the essence of why most of us love this game. pic.twitter.com/jNBqH098Hc
Before you start thinking he beat up on a bunch of locals with muni games, it’s worth noting the Papago skins game was brimming that day, as it usually is, with good players – pros and ams alike. Griffin Wood, who finished second, plays on the PGA Tour Canada series.
So tough spot to make rent money at Papago. Just an educated guess, but a par on the par-5 ninth hole probably didn’t pay in Monday’s skins pot. Like many skins game, it appears the entrants’ money was divided between a low-gross prize pot and a skins pot.
Papago ranks No. 20 in Arizona on Golfweek Best’s list of top public-access courses. The muni track not far from Arizona State University – Papago is home to the schools’ golf teams – has been reworked in recent years and is typically in excellent condition for a layout that sees so many rounds each year. As this writer will attest, the attached restaurant is top notch.
All in all it’s a great look for Homa, who has become a legit star on the PGA Tour as well as on social media, where his quick wit and availability has started to create an almost-Arnold Palmer like following. It’s hard to imagine some PGA Tour winners mingling with a muni crowd, but as he has proved, Homa is a natural in just about any setting.
And Homa’s round answers a question many local golfers ask about their public-access home tracks: How would a PGA Tour star score here? The Papago crowd has its answer.
Conversations with Champions is presented by Sentry.
Max Homa stole the show on Friday at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open, when he agreed to wear a mic and conduct a live talk-back during CBS’s coverage of the third round.
Homa was all business Saturday, shooting a final-round 66 to rally from six shots down to earn his sixth PGA Tour victory. The California kid also won for the fourth time (on three different courses) in his home state.
Homa moved up three spots to No. 13 in the Official World Golf Ranking and No. 7 in the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking. He also moved up four sports in the U.S. Ryder Cup team standings to No. 5, making him one of the six current automatic qualifiers.
The biggest thrill for Homa, though, might be that his infant son Cameron was greenside in the arms of his wife Lacey as he grinded out a come-from-behind win on the difficult South Course.
Here’s everything Homa said on Saturday at Torrey Pines.
Question: What was that progression for you to get more comfortable here at Torrey?
Max Homa: Joe [Homa’s caddie] did say exactly that. I think that Sunday I had shot 5 under in the final round and kind of finally figured out how to play the South Course. I’ve always played the North all right. But yeah, I think really what changed, part my golf game. I drive the ball really well now, that’s a big advantage out here. You don’t need to be in the short grass all the time, but you do need to be in it if you want to make birdies. The good news about this place is you’re going to make so many pars and bogeys, you can get away with some loose ones, but in general I started getting more comfortable on certain tees. My iron game has always kind of been my staple, I guess, of what I’m most proud of in my game and it lends itself to that at this golf course. But yeah, getting comfy on South knowing that I don’t need to ball out on North to have a chance here. As Joe said, once we get to the weekend or I guess Friday, the third round here, you know, it really does become a who’s who at the top it seems like. You need to play very, very good golf two days in a row on a very hard golf course. So I thought that just what Joe said, that final round, that T-9 I think gave me some confidence, all right, I can play this golf course. I think I came in here, got a little psyched out just because of how difficult it could be and I started to realize that you don’t need to hit every fairway. If I play my game, it actually does kind of suit me pretty well.
[pickup_prop id=”31698″]
Q: What has changed mentally in the last two or three years about your belief in yourself going from the social media guy to now one of the top players in the world?
MH: Everybody else calls me the social media guy. I still think I’m a pretty darn good golfer. Obviously results helped me kind of build that foundation. I do like to say dumb things and make dumb jokes and observe weird stuff and Tweet about it like, you know, a kid, I guess. But when I work, when I practice, when I play tournaments, I — this is what I love. I love what today was, it was incredible. So I don’t think anything’s changed too much. The confidence is becoming more steady. I’ve been working with a sports psychologist, Julie [Elion], who has, I mean the last two months have opened my eyes to a lot of things. Having a plan each day mentally. I didn’t go into a single round this week thinking about a technical goal or a statistical goal, it was I’m going to learn something today, I’m going to put in place what I’ve been working on, and today that’s what I did. I did a great job of it. I told her last night, she asked if I wanted to talk, I said I’m all good because I thought our game plan yesterday was fantastic. I didn’t play the greatest round of golf in the world, but I did everything that I wanted to do and put myself in a position to win a golf tournament.
Max Homa reacts after clinching victory at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. (Photo: Ray Acevedo-USA TODAY Sports)
Q: L.A. guy, winning in San Diego, that hasn’t happened a lot lately. Were you hearing anything from Padres fans while you were out there in the gallery?
MH: Only for the six days I’ve been here. (Laughs.) Yeah, I mean, it’s all in good fun. They talk a very big game, which is just wild to me. They have all the pressure in the world on them this year. They’ve spent all the money that we had been spending, so if they don’t win, then they can hear the same stuff they chirp back at us as Dodger fans. Yeah, it’s nice, it’s nice to win up and down the state of California and carry that L.A. logo both on my head and in my heart, me and Joe. It’s nice. I don’t talk back to anybody in the crowd about the Dodger-Padres thing but Joe does, so I enjoy listening to him talk his trash back to them.
Q: More serious golf question, the fact that you had experience now in coming back on the final day from deficits, what is there about your attitude, your thought process, what have you, that enables you to do that, that enables you to just let that roll off of you?
MH: I think I do a good job when I’m behind of “one shot at a time” and knowing that it’s a marathon. Unfortunately I’ve been in the position, succeeded a couple times both through on the, well, when it was the Web.com, now the Korn Ferry Tour. I think I was 7 behind and I won one in Chicago. I just remembered that experience of just go play golf, see what happens, I’m going to need help, but it’s hard to win golf tournaments I think what kind of always helps me. Sam [Ryder] is a phenomenal golfer, I’m sure he’ll win a bunch out here, but he hadn’t won yet. And it’s hard to win, I know that. I’ve done it fortunately and I think when the old guys say experience is key, that’s what they’re talking about. I was lucky, Jon [Rahm] is probably just exhausted, he’s made so many birdies and won so many golf tournaments. There’s just so much going on that you can’t really get ahead of yourself and I struggle with that at times, but when it’s something like today or when you are behind chasing, it almost eases you into just one at a time and make everybody beat you and just play a good round of golf and see what happens. You can’t force yourself to a 66 out here, you can’t force yourself to 64. I’m sure Tony shooting 64 yesterday, Jon shot 66, I’m sure they would say the same thing. It was a round earlier, but they just played good golf and the ball went in the hole. Trust your game. Yesterday was a bigger day towards the end goal than today really was because I had it, I had my game, I played awesome, swung it great, just did not make anything. Held it together and shot 1 under and gave myself a chance today to go play the same round of golf and let the ball go in the hole. I think just that patience has been something I’ve leaned on when I’m behind and knowing just how darn hard it is to win out here. There’s just a lot of great players and the golf courses are very hard. These final rounds are marathons, they seem to take forever.
Q: Does anything feel different about winning now that you have a child?
MH: A little bit. I mean, I’ve joked about it all afternoon, but I really, I want to win when he remembers it. However, when you have a kid as a professional athlete, you hear so many times the noise, oh, it’s, you’re not going to have the same time, this, that or whatever. But I’ve been so fortunate that my wife just seems to handle everything so easily. She had a horrendous birth, it did not go well. It was the scariest. … hard to say because it was an amazing day, get a new son, Cam. It was the worst day ever at the same time. I thought. …whatever. So she’s just made everything so easy. And I still go practice, but I think I just manage my time a bit better.
I guess to your question, it’s a little different because I feel like I’ve almost worked harder for this because I want to spend as much time as I possibly can helping her and being with Cam and doing all the cool things, catching some smiles here and there and getting screamed at. But I also want to be the best golfer on the planet and she knows that and she just does an amazing job letting me do both, especially when she’s here on the road and when I’m home. So yeah, I work hard at two things now, so it feels a little bit more difficult but it’s a million times more rewarding. To see them behind the 18th green knowing I was probably about to win a golf tournament was cool. Like I say, he has no idea what I did, but I will tell him this story ad nauseam and he will probably think I’m the worst for it, but this will be my corny dad story that I will tell every Thanksgiving or something.
Q: With you being in the moment, have you changed a diaper since walking off the course and now or is that a predicted thing for later?
MH: It will happen. The sun will come up tomorrow and my son will need a diaper change many times before that. So I will be changing diapers, I will enjoy every second of it as I always do. It’s going to feel even better than normal. If he screams at me, I will just be smiling ear to ear. These tournaments are hard, man, but it puts you in the best mood ever when you come out on top. He can poop away and I’ll just be here for him.
Q: Compared to other six wins, lost your card twice and earned your card back on the Korn Ferry Tour. Are there anyways you feel like that has been unique to your advantage or perspective to kind of compete at this level?
MH: Yeah, I think I have a great perspective towards my love for this game. I’ve seen kind of all of it. I remind myself most days too when I’m getting nervous coming down the stretch or things are getting wobbly, like today 12, or 13, 14, 15. I just kind of always remind myself you’ve seen the darkness of this game, enjoy this, enjoy the beauty of it. People chanting my name, things I could never have imagined. So I do think so. I think that it’s calming. And I’ve always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder, just grew up a huge Kobe fan. He just seemed to play basketball like that and I’ve always loved trying to play golf like that and work at it like that. So when I get in these moments, I feel like all of it combined eases me a bit. I remember when I won my first golf tournament on the PGA Tour, the Wells Fargo in ’19, I was going to play golf with Rory McIlroy on Saturday and I just told myself he’s never seen what I’ve seen, he does not know the same kind of pressure I know, I guess. I could be making this up, but either way it helped me beat him. But yeah, it’s the little things like that. I think everybody out here’s got their own chip, everyone out here’s got their own story, everyone out here has their own struggles. They look a little bit different. We all handle it how we handle it. But yeah, I can only tell you what’s going on in my head and that’s how I’ve kind of tried to use it.
Max Homa hits his tee shot on the 16th hole during the final round of the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. (Photo: Ray Acevedo-USA TODAY Sports)
Q: Those four straight birdies in Portland, do those still live on? Are they still something that comes up in your head?
MH: It’s funny, I think about it less and less, but I should probably think about it more and more. Yeah, that’s kind of what I mean about pressure. Like sitting there on the 15th hole and I didn’t know I needed to but I figured I needed to birdie the last four just to have a chance to go into the playoff. I believe I would be out here anyways, I believe I’d have six wins anyways, I believe that I would have figured it out, but I’m glad — I’m glad I made those four birdies, I’ll say that.
Q: This week it was a silly thing for Groundhog Day, but it was a fun clip where we asked you if there was a day you’d like to re-live over and over. … and you also made the point to mention you want to have more of those memories, want to create more days you would like to live over and over. What’s your reaction with that mentality that you have?
MH: Oh, man, that’s a great question. I guess I feel very thankful that I’m not really sure which day. I’ve had a lot of great days both on the golf course and off. I’m glad to say I do not know how to answer that question today.
Q: What do you think it is that kind of allowed you at that point have that response in terms of not wanting to really dwell on a date too much in the past?
MH: Yeah, I guess everyone, you know, you’re just hopeful. I hope that I haven’t seen my best day yet, my favorite day yet. I’m sure there will be many other great, great days. Today feels like the best day ever. I’m hoping that tomorrow feels better. I’ll say that maybe I’ll be looking forward to the first time my son thinks he’s going to beat me and I drop a putt on 18 to beat him and show him what’s up. That will probably be a day I’m looking forward to. But I guess it’s just hope. I think all of us kind of have that, you just hope for the best and stay the course.
Q: Have you always had that, just that natural hope?
MH: I think all of us kind of do. There’s some grumpy people, but if you’re playing golf, you better be an eternal optimist.
Q: I know you’re a big Kobe fan, so when you make that putt on 16 for the birdie, is there a little Kobe in you that says let’s go get it. Has anything changed mentally for you or do you stay even keeled at that moment?
MH: I actually thought about it, him a little bit throughout the day. This is the golf tournament where we found out he had passed away tragically, so this place has a weird, I have a weird feeling towards it. I love it and it has like a weird sadness to it. I mean, I think about Kobe Bryant a lot, I think a lot of athletes do. But yeah, little moments. It’s not the putt on 16 really, it was the putt on 13, the second one, and the second one on 15. That just tenacity that everyone around you might be oohing and ahhing and you know what’s about to happen and you kind of just stand up there and say I’m going to show you what guts are right now and I’m going to show you that I trust what I’ve been doing. What I learned from Kobe Bryant’s teachings and watching him, you know, work at his craft back in the day is he puts in all these hours behind the scenes so that when he’s on camera doing his thing, he can just let it happen. So I try to take that with me and I try to embrace the craziness and the pressure and all of that because that’s what I saw him do and I was enamored by that.
Q: All the success you’ve had in California, how much have you circled the U.S. Open in L.A. this year?
MH: A lot less than other people have for me. I’ve circled the Masters as the next major. But yeah, it will be great. I have great memories there, won the Pac-12s there. But I think I’m going to let a lot of people decide that that’s going to be a big opportunity for me. I’d like to just keep playing great golf and I would hope that all of them could be a good opportunity for me. But it will be fun just like today was to play in front of my friends and family. I’ll hear more Dodgers fans up there than Padres, so that will be a nice change from this week. But yeah, it’s so hard to look ahead. Right now if you told me to go start the U.S. Open tomorrow in L.A., I’d feel really, really good, but you never know what swing stuff you’re going to be going through. I’d like to say I’m going to feel just like I do right now, but I’m just going to keep working at it and when I get there I’ll be able to kind of look around and appreciate that I have great history there.
Q: Is there a hole that you made birdie when your son was there?
MH: The first one was, was it yesterday? Yesterday I birdied 18 and Joe said, “About time you birdied one for Cam.” I think I birdied 6 a couple days ago, but it didn’t feel like it counted to Joe, so we’ll let 18 yesterday be the one that counts.
Q: Just before we let you go, you wore the earpiece yesterday for one hole during the CBS broadcast. Sounds like it was successful, everybody seemed to have a good time, you included. Do you think or have you had any feedback from other players? Do you think now that you’ve gone on to win the tournament that there will be, that it will encourage others to perhaps experiment with that, try it?
MH: Hopefully. We’ve been working on this with [Andy] Pazder and CBS and everybody for like two months. I’m very excited about the idea. I’m sure if we could Tweet things how other people want to do it, how other players want to do it. If they don’t want to do it I’ll keep doing it, it didn’t bother me. I thought it was great for the fans to look into, push that envelope for the fans. Not just myself, but the Tour seems to be, CBS, NBC, all these broadcasting streams seem to be wanting to add something to the viewing experience. But it was great. It was cool to win after doing it. You always hear people say, oh, Tiger would never do this, Rahm would never do this, all they care about is winning. I get that, but you can do both. That was definitely nice to win doing that yesterday. It was 20 minutes, it was not invasive. I even thought if you don’t want to do the interview with the people in the booth, they could just be in your ear or in your caddie’s ear so they could hear us really clearly. So there’s definitely little things we could do here or there. I’m hoping other players would want to do it. I haven’t heard yet. We were coming off the third round into the fourth, we don’t really talk about too much of that stuff yet. But hopefully other players want to do it. I’m sure there’s some interest in this whether I won or didn’t. Hopefully we can kind of keep pushing that or tweak it, just anything to help golf kind of gain some attraction to all the viewers hopefully a little bit younger than our typical audience, I think that’s what the goal is.
“I think it will be a momentous part of my journey in this game,” Homa said.
SAN DIEGO – Confidence is knowing your best golf is still to come.
Max Homa, who won the Farmers Insurance Open on Saturday for his second PGA Tour title of the young 2022-23 season, is off to the best start of his career and credited his recent success to his new secret weapon: a sports psychologist.
Homa began working with Julie Elion, who is best known in the golf world for working with the likes of Phil Mickelson and helping Jimmy Walker win a major, late last year and the results have been immediate.
“The confidence is becoming more steady. I’ve been working with a sports psychologist, Julie, who has – I mean the last two months have opened my eyes to a lot of things,” he said in his winner’s press conference. “Having a plan each day mentally. I didn’t go into a single round this week thinking about a technical goal or a statistical goal, it was I’m going to learn something today, I’m going to put in place what I’ve been working on, and today that’s what I did. I did a great job of it.”
Speaking on the No Laying Up podcast, Homa detailed how on the 17th hole at Congaree in South Carolina during the final round of CJ Cup, his caddie, Joe Greiner, had something he wanted to address. He suggested Homa talk to a sports psychologist.
“I had tried that in the past and I didn’t like it,” Homa said. “The way he put it was I’m not tapping into a big facet of the game. Skill-wise, talent-wise, myself included, we’ve been working at this for so long there’s only so much I can better at incrementally I can get better at in this game.”
Congrats @maxhoma23 unreal clutch golf you played. That shot on 16 was sick!!
Homa has been open about how he can sometimes be his own worst enemy. Speaking at the Tour Championship in August after a round of 62 where the stars aligned, he said, “I felt like I deserved to play well, and I wasn’t even letting myself in the first place,” he said. “I get over, hit a great drive, a great 9-iron to 10 feet and think, ‘I have to make this.’ You just did two great things. Why don’t you just see what happens and trust that you’ve put in the work…
“This is how I am, unfortunately. But I think a lot of us are.”
Greiner, who is a childhood friend of Homa’s and has been on his bag for all six of Homa’s victories since 2018 (along with one win with Kevin Chappell), has witnessed the growth in Homa’s confidence in his own abilities.
“It’s really easy to fake-believe that you’re a really good player but now he walks around and you can just tell that he knows when he plays well he’s going to contend and he should be one of the best players in the world,” Greiner said. “He was always so hard on himself. He knows that his good is good enough and it is a lot easier for him to walk down the fairways and know he doesn’t need to be perfect.”
A key to Homa’s victory at Torrey Pines, where he shot a final-round 66 to win by two, was gutting out a 71 in the third round when he played solidly but couldn’t get the putts to fall. But rather than lose focus and mope, he did enough to hang around and trusted his game heading into the final round. When Elion texted to see if he wanted to talk, Homa responded that he was “all good.”
“Trust your game,” he said. “(Friday) was a bigger day towards the end goal than today really was because I had it, I had my game, I played awesome, swung it great, just did not make anything. Held it together and shot 1 under and gave myself a chance today to go play the same round of golf and let the ball go in the hole,” he said.
Homa is just scratching the surface in his work with Elion. Could it be the final piece in the puzzle for Homa to win his first major, where in 12 major starts as a pro he has recorded just one top-20 finish and missed the cut seven times?
“I think it will be a momentous part of my journey in this game,” Homa said. “I had never worked on my mental game the way (Joe) was talking about it. He said, ‘I’m not telling you this because I think you’re broken, I’m telling you this because I think it can boost us real high in this game of golf.”
The 28-year-old Spaniard made a mess of the fifth hole, and his emotions at times got the better of him as he posted 2-over 74 at the South Course at Torrey Pines and finished T-7.
Rahm entered the final round in second place, two strokes behind Sam Ryder. Not only was he trying to become the first player to win three consecutive starts on the PGA Tour since Dustin Johnson in 2017, but he would have returned to World No. 1 for the first time since last March.
Rahm confirmed that Torrey Pines, where he won the Farmers in 2017 and the U.S. Open in 2021, was his favorite course, but in the final round it turned into a love-hate relationship.
On a course where he averaged just a shade over 67, better than even Tiger Woods, Rahm missed a 9-foot par putt on the first hole to drop four strokes behind, and it only got worse when he drove left into a fairway bunker at the fifth hole. With his ball near the lip, he pulled his approach and it hit the cart path and bounced left into juicy rough.
“If it just stays in the rough I have an up-and-down chance, hits the cart path and goes to a dead spot,” he said. “I got the worst possible lie in the rough. Anytime I was in the rough, I was just dead as could be.”
He flubbed two pitch shots at the fifth and had to hole a 9-foot putt to save double bogey. He got a stroke back with a birdie at the par-5 sixth but took his anger out on the seventh tee box, slamming the head of his driver into the turf in disgust, when his drive failed to fade and found another fairway bunker. It led to another bogey.
Rahm had chances at Nos. 8 and 9 to claw closer but couldn’t get the putts to drop. CBS’s Dottie Pepper observed that Rahm was taking a couple of extra seconds longer standing over the ball on the greens. After gaining more than two strokes on the greens in the third round (ranked ninth), he lost more than a stroke to the field in the final round (ranked 55th of 73 in the field).
“I was lucky,” Max Homa, the winner of the tournament after shooting 6-under 66 on Saturday said during his winner’s press conference. “Jon is probably just exhausted.”
Rahm could have regained No. 1 with a runner-up or solo-third depending on where reigning World No. 1 Rory McIlroy finishes at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour (concluding Monday). But that became a moot point as Rahm, who rocketed from T-116 after an opening-round 73 and the wrong side of the cutline on Thursday with five holes to go to the final group on Saturday, couldn’t mount a charge to keep his hot streak intact. Only rounds of 75 and 77 on the weekend at the South Course in the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open were higher than his final-round 74 in 28 combined rounds at Torrey Pines (both North and South).
“I knew it would be a tough day,” he said. “I knew a couple under probably would have had a chance, but I just didn’t have it.”
Still, he’s been a force to be reckoned and will next tee it up at his hometown event, the WM Phoenix Open, not far from where he played at Arizona State, in two weeks.
It pays to play well on the PGA Tour. Just ask Max Homa.
It pays to play well on the PGA Tour. Just ask this week’s winner, Max Homa.
Starting the day five shots behind and eventually falling to six back, Homa charged to the front with a final-round 6-under 66 to win the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in California. Homa birdied both of the par 3s on the back nine and closed with a final birdie on the par-5 18th, securing his sixth PGA Tour victory and second of the 2022-23 season.
His victory will net him $1,566,000, up from the $1,512,000 Luke List won a year ago.
[pickup_prop id=”31698″]
Check out how much money each PGA Tour player earned this week at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open.
SAN DIEGO – Joe Greiner had never seen his boss and best friend, Max Homa, smile so wide.
This was on Thursday as Homa was playing on the North Course at Torrey Pines and Greiner, his dutiful caddie, pointed to Homa’s wife, Lacey, and newborn son, Cam, who had come out to the course and surprised him
“He was like a kid when he saw Cam,” Greiner said.
That smile may have been topped late on Saturday as Homa sewed up his sixth PGA Tour victory with a birdie at 18 to win the Farmers Insurance Open with wife and son watching from behind the green.
“If he screams at me, I will just be smiling ear to ear,” Homa said of returning to diaper duty. “He can poop away and I’ll just be here for him.”
Homa shot a final-round 6-under 66 at Torrey’s South Course to edge hard-charging Keegan Bradley by two strokes.
Max Homa with his wife Lacey and son Cameron after he won the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open Torrey Pines in San Diego. (Photo: Ray Acevedo-USA TODAY Sports)
Homa’s last five wins have been in come-from-behind fashion. This time he erased a five-stroke overnight deficit, which had grown to as many as six, by the turn, canning a 7-foot birdie at nine to tie for the lead. He toured the front nine in 32 en route to his second victory of the 2022-23 Tour season, including his win at the Fortinet Championship in September, and fourth win in his native state of California.
Homa became a first-time parent on Oct. 30, but it was not without its fretful moments. Lacey underwent complications during Cam’s birth, Homa has said, requiring multiples surgeries and time in the ICU.
“She had a horrendous birth, it did not go well,” Homa said during his winner’s press conference. “It was the scariest – hard to say because it was an amazing day, get a new son, Cam. It was the worst day ever at the same time.”
Homa credited his wife for being “a rock star” as a mother, allowing him to practice and focus on his play, and he wanted to pay back her for those efforts.
“I feel like I’ve almost worked harder for this because I want to spend as much time as I possibly can helping her and being with Cam and doing all the cool things, catching some smiles here and there and getting screamed at,” he said. “But I also want to be the best golfer on the planet and she knows that and she just does an amazing job letting me do both…I work hard at two things now, so it feels a little bit more difficult but it’s a million times more rewarding.”
In the final round, Homa got his first of three deuces on the day at No. 3, the first of four birdies on the opening nine. As the players turned for home, the marine layer gave way and Torrey Pines was bathed in sunshine. Among a stacked leaderboard, Homa shined brightest. He made the second deuce at No. 11, striping a 4-iron to 13 feet and rolling in the putt.
“When he made the one on 11, I said, ‘That’s a Tiger two right there.’ Cuz guys don’t make two there,” Greiner said.
But Homa surrendered the lead at 14 with his lone bogey of the day to drop back to 11 under. Homa saved his best swing of the day for the par-3 16th, flagging another 4-iron to 15 feet, the closest anyone got to the hole all day, and drained the putt.
“I’m not even looking at that pin,” Collin Morikawa, who played alongside Homa, said. “He didn’t miss a shot and that’s what you’ve got to do if you’re going to win out here.”
Homa added a birdie at 18 for good measure to finish at 13-under 275.
Bradley carded the only bogey-free round of the day with a 6-under 66. But he pulled his second shot from 219 yards on the par-5 18th into the bunker left of the green, and he was unable to get up-and-down for birdie.
“The one shot I mis-hit all day,” said Bradley, who finished 11 under, a shot better than Morikawa (69), who was alone in third.
After holding at least a share of the lead after each of the first three rounds, Sam Ryder made a costly double bogey at 15 to fall out of the lead and finished T-4 (75). Jon Rahm, who entered the final round in second place with a chance for his third win in as many starts, struggled on the front nine and shot 74, settling for a T-7 finish, his fourth top-10 in four starts to begin the season.
Homa, who represented Team USA in his first international team competition at the Presidents Cup in October, has emerged as one of the game’s best players after twice losing his card and having to return to the Korn Ferry Tour. Saturday was a gritty performance that showed just how much he trusts and believes in his game.
“It’s really easy to fake-believe that you’re a really good player but now he walks around and you can just tell that he knows when he plays well he’s going to contend and that he should be one of the best players in the world,” Greiner said.
Max Homa looks on prior to hitting his first shot on the 14th hole of the North Course during the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. (Photo: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)
He’s earned the respect of his peers, who think Homa is just hitting his stride.
“It was only a matter of time before he put a string together like this,” Morikawa, a fellow Cal Bear, said.
“He’ll be challenging for No. 1,” CBS’s Colt Knost said. “He’s that good.”
Homa has become the rare social-media star, who also can pull off being a world-class player. If he can balance those acts, why not this parent thing too? He’s already looking forward to the day that he can tell Cam about the time daddy took down some of the best at Torrey.
“I will tell him this story ad nauseam and he will probably think I’m the worst for it, but this will be my corny dad story that I will tell every Thanksgiving or something,” he said, adding, “he’s not going to remember this, so I’ve got to win again.”
While there may be bigger victories still to come, Homa will always remember his first victory as a parent with a special keepsake. As he waited to do an interview, Homa took the Titleist golf ball he had used, which has the No. 25 inscribed on it, the basketball number of a high school buddy who passed away, and in black Sharpie he added, “For Cam.” Then he shoved it back into his pocket for safe-keeping and wiped his eyes.
“This is ultimately what we want, right? That’s why we play,” Sam Ryder said.
SAN DIEGO — Sam Ryder is attempting to win his first PGA Tour title in his 147th start. Breathing down his neck is Jon Rahm, the hottest player on the planet, who is bidding to become just the fourth player in the last 25 years to win in three straight starts. And lining up behind Rahm are five players who competed in the Presidents Cup. No big deal for Ryder, if he’s to find the winner’s circle for the first time. But to be the best, Ryder knows he’s going to have to beat the best, and he’s embracing the challenge.
“This is ultimately what we want, right? That’s why we play,” he said. “I can’t recreate that anywhere else in my line of work, so it’s just exciting, it’s fun.”
Ryder finished with 12 straight pars at Torrey Pines’ South Course on Friday, and posted an even-par 72 to remain at 12 under and two strokes ahead of Rahm. Ryder began the day leading by three strokes but took three putts at the second and watched a host of top players climb a little closer to the lead. Ryder made his only birdie at the par-5 sixth hole and continues to be rock solid when he has missed the green – 9 of 10 in scrambling this week.
“Overall, I’m very pleased,” he said. “Starting the day with a lead, ending the day with a lead, pretty satisfied.”
Ryder said he’s a creature of habit, something he picked up playing baseball in his youth.
“We’re a very superstitious bunch, the baseball players. It’s like if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it kind of thing,” he explained. “I remember where I was in Omaha when I won (on the Korn Ferry Tour), I was sitting at the same seat at the bar. I’m not going to that level, but just sticking to what I’m doing. It’s nice to kind of feel the same. I can’t control the weather or the conditions, my tee time, things like that. If I can control my environment as much as possible, it helps you feel a little bit more comfortable.”
He may not be sitting at the same bar stool, but he has been eating the same meal everyday at Urban Plates, a restaurant he described as “semi-healthy.” And his meal of choice?
“It was just a little chimichurri steak and some sweet potatoes and broccoli and a little rice. Pretty simple,” he said, adding that he washed it down with sparkling water.
Ryder has a big task ahead of him in the final round but he said he has won at every level. “This is next on the list,” he said. “Whether it’s tomorrow or whether it’s down the road, I believe that’s going to happen at some point. Just trying to enjoy the journey and the ride and all those things, too, as much as possible.”
Everything you need to know for the final round at Torrey Pines.
The PGA Tour’s West Coast swing has moved from the Coachella desert to the shores of San Diego for this week’s 2023 Farmers Insurance Open.
Torrey Pines, which hosted the 2021 U.S. Open, again is the site of the second stop in the West Coast Swing. Although the North Course was used during the first two rounds, the South Course is what players have battled down the stretch.
The tournament is a Wednesday-to-Saturday format once again this year, with the NFL’s AFC and NFC conference championship games scheduled for Sunday afternoon and evening. That means Saturday is the final round.
Jon Rahm, searching for his third win in as many starts, shot 6-under 66 and is at 10 under with 18 holes to play, but he trails Sam Ryder by two shots heading to Saturday. Tony Finau shot 8 under on moving day and is in third.
From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for the final round of play at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. All times listed are Eastern.
We recommend interesting sports viewing and streaming opportunities. If you sign up to a service by clicking one of the links, we may earn a referral fee.
Max Homa being mic’d up was fantastic for golf fans.
Thanks to Max Homa and CBS, golf fans were treated to a spectacular 15 minutes of television on Friday.
During the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in California, Homa agreed to let CBS mic him up on the par-5 13th hole. Homa, who was in fourth at the time at 7 under, spoke with CBS analysts Trevor Immelman, Ian Baker-Finch and Frank Nobilo about how to play the hole, with conversations ranging from course management to shot strategy and everything in between.
Homa put an AirPod in his left ear, and the announcers began talking to him as he walked toward his ball in the fairway. He talked about hitting his cut shot off the tee and how the wind would carry it where it needed to go.
He was also asked about how to decide whether to go for the green in two or lay up and what would go into his decision.
Homa decided to go for it in two, and he pulled his ball left, saying he hit it off the toe. When he got up by the green, Homa called for a rules official when his ball became embedded and he got a free drop. His second shot landed above the front left bunker by the green.
“I’m sure this is just in a peach of a lie,” Homa joked when walking to the green. And one he got to his ball? “I’m not going to touch it.”
After dropping his ball to play his third shot, Homa continued his jokes.
“I’m exhausted,” he said standing on the side of the hill.
His third shot landed on the green, and he two-putted for par. Homa took the AirPod out of his ear before hitting his putts.
Homa is known for being one of the best follows on Twitter because of his sense of humor, but his personality was displayed plenty when being mic’d up. He was witty and engaging while not being afraid to open up on what he was thinking during the middle of the round. Homa finished at 7 under and T-4 after his third round.
Players have worn mics before, like in the different editions of The Match, but never in a competition setting like on the PGA Tour.
The Match prepped us for what this would be like, but it was even better than imagined. Kudos to Homa and the CBS crew for doing something new that was engaging for the television audience.
After the round, Homa talked about how the experience went.
“I think it went well. There were a couple bumps, but overall I was pretty happy with it. I hope the fans at home liked it and I hope that we can do something like that, if not the same thing, going forward. That will be up to the people much smarter than me. I thought it was good. I thought it was good to have insight on the golf course. Obviously it’s going to take us as players being a lot more flexible, but this is an entertainment product and that means we should entertain.
“We’re entertainers and I’d like for the players to be flexible. If it makes you super uncomfortable, that’s all good, but it wasn’t so bad, that was the first rendition. Hopefully, like I said, people at home appreciated it and enjoyed it because I just think it’s a little different than in an interview. You’re learning about a hole, about not just the player but about the tournament and the golf course and what it takes to be playing, you know, high-level competitive golf.”
We tried something new today! Hope u guys enjoyed it. Just looking to add something to the viewing experience going forward. Appreciate the kind responses to it so far! https://t.co/1P8oV4ZkGh
