Abraham Ancer has finished T-14 at Colonial the last two seasons and is coming off a top 10 at the PGA.
The week after a major always feels like a hangover.
Four straight days of 12 hours on the couch, eating like crap, and maybe indulging in a few adult beverages will do it every time.
Now, it’s time for a quick turnaround as the PGA Tour heads back down to Texas for what feels like the 10th time.
The Charles Schwab Challenge, despite its spot on the schedule, has conjured up quite the field here in 2022. PGA champion Justin Thomas isn’t taking any time to celebrate his second career major win and is set to tee off Thursday at Colonial Country Club.
Joining him are World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland and Will Zalatoris.
Golf course
Colonial Country Club | Par 70 | 7,209 yards | Perry Maxwell design
Jason Kokrak hits an approach shot on the ninth hole during the final round of the 2021 Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Key statistics
Driving accuracy: Colonial has the fourth narrowest fairways on Tour.
Strokes Gained: Around the Green: Colonial has the seventh smallest greens on Tour, so players who get up and down when they inevitably miss the green will have a significant advantage this week.
Data Golf Information
Course Fit (compares golf courses based on the degree to which different golfer attributes — such as driving distance — to predict who performs well at each course – DataGolf): 1. TPC Sugarloaf, 2. Westchester CC, 3. Sea Island GC
Trending: 1. Scottie Scheffler (last three starts: T-18, T-15, MC), 2. Justin Thomas (T-35, T-5, 1), 3. Will Zalatoris (T-4, MC, 2)
Percent chance to win (based on course history, fit, trending, etc.): 1. Justin Thomas (7.8 percent), 2. Scottie Scheffler (6 percent), 3. Jordan Spieth (4.7 percent)
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Homa has now won three PGA Tour events since the start of 2021.
Max Homa is quickly becoming one of the biggest names in golf, for his on-course performance and off. The Twitter roaster struggled several years ago just to make a cut but has now won three events since the start of 2021.
Max Homa and Joe Greiner have now been together for four PGA Tour wins.
“Conversations with Champions, presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes in a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Joe Greiner, caddie for Max Homa at the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship.
It was a slog but Max Homa and caddie Joe Greiner proved tougher than the conditions at the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship.
Homa won the tournament—for a second time, although at a different location—by two shots in wet and muddy conditions for his fourth PGA Tour win.
John Rathouz from The Caddie Network caught up with Greiner the day after their win at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm outside Washington, D.C. The two discussed dealing with the conditions, and the fact that Homa doesn’t seem to mind dealing with the rain.
“Max is actually, he’s pretty anti-umbrella,” Greiner said. “He doesn’t mind getting wet. So my job was basically keep the clubs as dry as possible. I have to like, force him to take it because sometimes I’m trying to clean the club, put it back in the bag, with the umbrella. I’m like ‘Max, just take the umbrella. I know you don’t like it but I need you to take it.’
“He’s pretty awesome in the tough weather conditions. … he’s a So-Cal kid, doesn’t like umbrellas.”
Max Homa celebrates with his caddie Joe Greiner after winning the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm in Potomac, Maryland. (Photo: Nick Wass/Associated Press)
Homa is not playing this week in the AT&T Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, Texas, outside of Dallas, as he prepares for the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“His goal this year is to play better in the majors, get in contention, know what it feels like.” Greiner said. “It’s not like you just go out there and automatically play good in a major. I mean, it’s tough. Sometimes the golf course doesn’t fit you. I think Southern Hills is going to be a good set up for him. He’s very excited. He’s working very hard, he’ll probably take one day off. We’re excited. It’s going to be a good one for us.”
Homa and Greiner can also book plans for the 2023 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course at Kapalua.
A closer look at Max Homa’s apparel worn during his latest PGA Tour win.
Max Homa beat both the field and the weather at the Wells Fargo Championship at TPC Potomac this weekend to claim his fourth PGA Tour victory.
Off the course, Homa is a social media legend, but on the course Max is known for his steady demeanor and eye-catching shirts.
FootJoy does a great job of promoting their athletes, and Homa is no exception. Check out more info on Homa’s favorite FootJoy items.
We’ve already taken a look into Homa’s winning equipment, so now let’s dive into the champion’s closet and see how Max dressed for success at the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship.
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Frosty temperatures. Gusting winds. Unrelenting rain. A course so water-logged it’s mindful of a sponge.
Think of elements that would make you frown during a round of golf.
Frosty temperatures. Gusting winds. Unrelenting rain. A course so water-logged it’s mindful of a sponge rimmed with thick, drenched, punishing rough.
Now imagine that quartet of misery as a collective and you have Saturday’s third round of the Wells Fargo Championship at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, north of the nation’s capital.
“Just get around, literally, just any way possible,” Matthew Fitzpatrick said about his game-plan for Saturday. He did OK with a 71.
Most others weren’t so fortunate on a day the thermometer never reached 50 and the winds made it feel cooler. As well, the clouds kept spitting rain throughout the day, adding to the 3 inches of H2O that fell on the course the past two days.
Which, of course, kept TPC Potomac soaked, making for some interesting lies despite players being allowed to lift, clean and place.
Max Homa at the ninth hole during the third round of the Wells Fargo Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports
“It feels like I’ve just gone 12 rounds in a pro boxing match,” said Anirban Lahiri, who shot 70. “You’re fighting everything, you’re fighting your body, the elements, the water, the cold, the conditions. It’s tough work and you just have to grit your teeth and kind of grind it out.”
After a dry Thursday when the field averaged 69.58 strokes, the players posted averages of 72.57 on rainy Friday and 73.67 on Saturday; that was the highest average relative to par in a non-major since the final round of the 2020 Memorial.
In the third round, only four of the 65 players broke par, including three-time Wells Fargo winner and defending champion Rory McIlroy, who moved from a tie for 50th to a tie for sixth with a 68.
The leader, however, is Keegan Bradley, who somehow shot 3-under-par 67 to grab the 54-hole lead. The 2011 PGA Championship winner is looking for his first win since the 2018 BMW Championship, which finished on Monday because of storms throughout the week. Bradley made just two bogeys.
“When the conditions get like this, I find a sense of calm just because I’m sort of worried about other things, keeping my clubs dry and my bag dry. Sort of keeps me in the present. I did that today and I just had a great time with my caddie Scotty (Vail). We’re a good team and we did a lot of good things today,” Bradley said. “My coach, Darren May, and my caddie, Scotty, are in my ear that these sort of conditions are good for me. When you look at the weather, the extended weather, as a player you get sort of stressed when you see this even though everyone’s playing in it, it’s silly. But they were sort of in my ear saying this is what you want, you want it to be windy and tough. I’m starting to believe them.”
Bradley is at 8 under.
Max Homa, the 2019 Wells Fargo winner who had the lead earlier in the day, shot 71 and is at 6 under. At 4 under are Lahiri and James Hahn, the 2016 Wells Fargo winner; Hahn shot 72. At 3 under is Fitzpatrick. A large collection is at 2 under, including McIlroy, Cameron Young (69) and Matthew Wolff (70).
“Six shots is still six shots,” McIlroy said. “It depends what the weather’s like tomorrow. I’d like it to be pretty tough. I know it’s probably not going to be as wet. It’s going to be quite cold. I don’t know what the wind’s going to be like. I can’t imagine tomorrow being any tougher than today was.
“You can’t really chase much around here because it’s a tough golf course, but like six shots is still a long way back.”
The forecast is for a rainless day. But the temps will still not reach 50.
Jason Day walks onto the ninth hole green during the third round of the Wells Fargo Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports
It certainly wasn’t Jason Day’s day in the third round. The 2015 PGA Championship victor, looking for his first win since the 2018 Wells Fargo Championship, looked stellar through 36 holes and led by three shots at 10 under.
But he hit tee shots into water hazards on consecutive holes early in his third round, hit his approach on the par-5 10th into a swamp, made just one birdie and shot 79.
“I think I deserve a soda after today, maybe some cookies, some kind of candy.”
POTOMAC, Md. — Playing in the morning’s fifth group, Max Homa was shocked his threesome finished their second round at the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship. He even told his caddie before the round he thought they’d only play eight holes due to the weather.
“I’m just happy to be done,” said Homa, one of just 11 players from the Friday morning wave to shoot under par.
The three-time PGA Tour winner battled the elements to tie for the low round of the day despite heavy and consistent rain, signing for a 4-under 66 to match the efforts of Luke List and Chad Ramey. Homa now sits in solo second at 7 under behind first-round leader Jason Day, who extended his lead to three shots at 10 under after a 3-under 67 at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, this year’s Wells Fargo host while Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina, prepares for the Presidents Cup in September.
“Yeah, Jason and I have been talking about it for like two and a half hours, that we can’t wait for it to be done and kick our feet up,” Homa said after the round. “I know he’s got his bus here so he’s going to go hang on the bus. I’m going to go sit on my bed and I think I deserve a soda after today, maybe some cookies, some kind of candy, I don’t know. I’m going to kick my feet up.”
Instead of dreading the downpours, Ramey was embracing them.
“I just honestly try to embrace the conditions because I know there’s going to be a lot of guys out here that hate it. It just is what it is,” said the winner of the 2022 Corales Puntacana Championship. “As long as I can embrace the conditions and keep my mind right, I feel like I’m ahead of half the field.”
In 18 events this season, Ramey has made eight cuts and missed 10, finishing in the top 10 twice at the Puerto Rico Open in March, followed by his win three weeks later in Puntacana.
“It’s nice to be able to get in at 10 under through two rounds, especially with what kind of weather we’ve got coming in on the weekend,” added Day, noting how he loves to grind it out in tough conditions. “I’m looking forward to it. It’s nice to be back in the mix, nice to be leading. It’s still two more days left, so I can’t get too far ahead of myself.”
The former world No. 1 said something similar about managing expectations after he took the lead on Thursday, and that patience will be a useful 15th club with inclement weather in the forecast for the rest of the weekend. The Weather Channel is calling for overnight rain on Friday, with 10-15 mph winds and a 90% chance of rain on Saturday.
The Wells Fargo Championship will continue with Round 2 on Friday afternoon from TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm.
The Wells Fargo Championship will continue with Round 2 on Friday afternoon from TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm.
Jason Day is leading the pack heading into Friday with 10-under with Max Homa and Luke List behind him respectively. We should see some action today as we head into the weekend with two-time FedExCup winner Rory McIlroy looking to crack the top 10.
This will be a great weekend on golf, here is everything you need to know to watch and stream the action.
PGA Tour odds courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook. Odds were last updated Friday at 1:00 p.m. ET.
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The Wells Fargo Championship has been a happy hunting ground for several first-time winners.
Simply earning a PGA Tour card is an achievement in itself, but for a player to feel as if they belong, as if they’ve really made it to the big time, eventually a player needs to hoist a trophy. Not just for the paycheck and the two-year exemption that comes with it, but for the confidence it produces. Winning is validation. It’s what every pro lives for, but unless your name is Tiger Woods a win once a year can be the makings of a Hall of Fame career.
Since its debut in 2003, the Wells Fargo Championship has been a happy hunting ground for several first-time winners. As a measure of the quality of Quail Hollow Golf Club, once a quail-hunting preserving, the list of players to claim the trophy in the Queen City includes the likes of major winners Woods, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, David Toms, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy, who has won the title three times. (The 2022 edition is being played at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farms, just 20 miles north of the nation’s capital because Quail Hollow will host the Presidents Cup later this year.)
McIlroy, who won here in 2010, 2015 and 2021, leads a stout foursome of Rickie Fowler, Anthony Kim, and Max Homa who made their debut Tour victory at Quail Hollow. And let’s not forget the Cinderella story that was Derek Ernst.
In 2008, Anthony Kim became the tournament’s original first-time winner after enjoying a near flawless performance in the final round. The 22-year-old Kim became not only the youngest champion of the Wells Fargo Championship, but he became the youngest first-time champion on the Tour since 2001. Kim built a four-stroke lead through 54 holes with a 66 on Saturday and never looked back. His playing partner Jason Bohn called the round, “almost Tigeresque.”
“I’m a little bit numb right now, but that walk up 18 was the best feeling of my entire life,” Kim said after finishing five strokes ahead of former British Open champion Ben Curtis and shattering Woods’s tournament scoring record with a 16-under 272 total. “I’ll never forget that feeling. I had chills going up and down my spine. I want to recreate that as many times as possible now, so I’m really going to work hard.”
Kim would go on to win two more times on Tour and play on the U.S. Ryder Cup team in 2008 before injuries derailed his career. He made his final start at Quail Hollow in 2012, withdrawing after an opening-round 74 and hasn’t competed in a Tour event since.
Anthony Kim throws his ball to the crowd after winning the 2008 Wachovia Championship in Charlotte. (Photo: Associated Press)
Two years after Kim’s debut victory, another boy wonder – this one with staying power – earned an impressive breakthrough win. Two days before his 21st birthday, the baby-faced McIlroy became the youngest winner on Tour since Woods in 1996. The Northern Irishman also became the third straight player in his 20s to win the Wells Fargo Championship and the youngest winner in tournament history.
His final-round 62 included six consecutive threes on his scorecard over the final six holes as he shattered the course record by two strokes and won by four over reigning Masters champion Phil Mickelson.
“To win this tournament as my first is something quite special,” McIlroy said.
Remarkably, McIlroy needed to hole a 6-foot eagle on the par-five 7th (his 16th hole of the day) to make the 36-hole cut on the number with a 1-over total. He was nine strokes out of the lead before climbing within striking range with a third-round 66.
Of McIlroy’s final-round exploits, Kim, who was his playing partner on Sunday, said, “He was in a total zone.”
McIlroy has gone on to win four majors, reach World No. 1 and win 20 PGA Tour titles, including twice more at Quail Hollow – in 2015 when he broke his own course record with a third-round 61 and again in 2021.
“This place has been good to me,” McIlroy said of Quail Hollow following his win in 2021. “Ever since I first set eyes on this golf course, I loved it from the first time I played it, and that love has sort of been reciprocated back. I’ve played so well here over the years. … this is the first time I’ve ever won an event for the third time, so that’s pretty cool to do it here.”
Rory McIlroy reacts after winning the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. (Photo: Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY Sports)
Two years after McIlroy established himself as a winner on Tour and used it as a launching pad toward stardom, Rickie Fowler faced off with McIlroy and D.A. Points in a three-way playoff. The 23-year-old Fowler gambled with a 51-degree wedge that had to be perfect on an 18th hole that had yielded only four birdies all day.
Having already overcome a three-shot deficit on the final day by firing a 3-under 69 to join a playoff when Points bogeyed the final hole of regulation, Fowler returned to No. 18 and attacked a dicey pin with a creek hugging the green’s left side. Fowler’s gamble paid off as he stuffed the shot to 4 feet and made the birdie putt to claim his first of what has grown to five Tour wins. Fowler had finished second four times previously in 67 starts as a pro.
“There’s a lot of people that have doubted or said, ‘You’ll never win,’ ” Fowler said at the time. “It’s nice to kind of shut them up a little bit.”
Rickie Fowler holds the trophy after winning the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. (Photo: Gerry Broome/Associated Press)
If Fowler continued a trend of first-time Tour winners in their early 20s at Quail Hollow, a year later in 2013 an even younger first-time champion confirmed a pattern. Ernst, in only his ninth Tour start and 11 days shy of turning 23, emerged late Sunday from a leaderboard full of proven winners to give himself an early birthday present.
Ranked 1,207th in the Official World Golf Ranking at the time, Ernst won in a playoff over England’s David Lynn. Adding to Ernst’s rags-to-riches story was the fact that he began the week as the fourth alternate for the Wells Fargo field, and so drove to Athens, Georgia, planning to play in a Korn Ferry Tour event before getting a phone call that there was a tee time with his name on it in Charlotte.
“This feeling is unbelievable right now,” Ernst said after he won his lone title on Tour.
Derek Ernst won the 2013 Wells Fargo Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. (Photo: Getty Images)
When Homa found the winner’s circle in 2019, his victory fell into the category with Ernst of unlikely champions. Homa, winner of the 2013 NCAA individual title, had dipped to No. 829 in the world when he got his third crack at the PGA Tour for the 2018-19 season. In his previous stint two years earlier, he made only two cuts in 17 tournaments, missing the 54-hole cut in one of them and finishing last at an opposite-field event in the other, and earning the grand total of $18,008. But he made six of seven cuts coming into the Wells Fargo Championship and had climbed to 417th in the world.
At Quail Hollow, he carded three rounds in the 60’s including a second-round 63 which tied for the low round of the week, and closed with a 4-under 67 to top Joel Dahmen by three strokes.
Max Homa celebrates on the 18th green after making his par putt to win the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club n Charlotte. (Photo: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
“When I hit rock bottom I found a shovel and kept digging,” Homa said. “I’m very proud I finally found a ladder and started climbing upwards because it was getting dark down there.”
In his 68th start as a pro, Homa won for the first time and it proved to be only the beginning as he’s climbed inside the top 50 in the world. Homa has tasted victory twice more – at the Genesis Invitational and Fortinet Championship.
But like Kim, McIlroy, Fowler, and Ernst before him, Homa will never forget his first win. With nine first-time winners already this season through the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play in late March, it would come as no surprise if the Wells Fargo Championship’s first-time winner’s club were to add a new member during its one-year hiatus at TPC Potomac Farms in Potomac, Maryland.
Any contenders may want to remember these words from Homa after his arduous journey to being a Tour winner: “I felt like I was going to throw up, but my hands felt unbelievable on the club.”
Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship official tournament program.
In the last two years, Tour pros from Rory McIlroy (Poppy) to Jon Rahm (Kepa) to Rickie Fowler (Maya) to Jordan Spieth (Sammy) have all joined the first-time father club.
It stretches beyond the big names. Mark Hubbard (Harlo), Hank Lebioda (Henry), Luke List (Harrison) and Harold Varner III (Liam) are proud papas too, and the list goes on. PGA Tour Daycare, or what the kids call Golf School, is going to be busy. But perhaps the happiest of the baby announcements was that of 40-year-old Camilo Villegas, who welcomed son Mateo on Dec. 21.
Villegas and wife Maria suffered the loss of daughter, Mia, who was 22 months old when she died of cancer in 2020. When Villegas spoke to Golfweek in October 2020, he expressed hope that he and his wife would have another baby.
“My wife was nervous at the beginning. We talked to the doctors and they said it was just a bad lottery ticket. There’s nothing that suggests this would happen again,” he said in the earlier story. “We’re looking forward. It took us a while to get pregnant. In the meantime, we’re going to help others, remember the good, and focus on what’s coming.”
Ahead of the Mexico Open at Vidanta, Villegas spoke about being a parent again. “He’s great. He’s fun to be around,” Villegas said. “Mateo’s four months old and the family is doing good. Obviously 2020 was a tough year for us, but to have Mateo in our life is pretty special.
“We have Mia’s Miracles Foundation to just kind of add to the joy of giving back and helping others and giving a little purpose to our life and why we’re here and how we can once again give back. It was a tough experience, but without it we wouldn’t have Mia’s Miracles. And obviously we truly, truly miss Mia, but we’re going to do some great things for others and try to make the best of it.”
Villegas is embarking on a stretch of playing five straight weeks and noted it is difficult to be away apart for so long. “I’m missing him and I can’t wait to just play some good weeks and head back and just give him a hug,” he said.
On Monday, Homa announced on social media that he and his wife Lacey are expecting a boy. They did their “reveal” by having their dog run out with baby-blue balloons attached around its waist and a scarf that read, “Big sis.”
