Max Homa’s career has been on an upward trend ever since he notched his first PGA Tour win at the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship. Two additional wins in 2021 launched him into elite status on Tour. He’s currently ranked 37th in the world.
As Homa prepared to tee it up in the year’s first major this week, he made a guest appearance on Off Course with Claude Harmon to discuss a range of topics. Among them: his specific takeaways from each of his three tour wins.
“Wells Fargo was like, the blackout week. It just worked,” Homa said. “When I missed, it went in the right spot. I putted the best I’ve putted for four days. It was just a blackout. Everything aligned, and I learned that my really good golf is really, really good. I knew, at least, in the back of my mind, that for the rest of my life, my best golf is good enough to beat damn near everybody.”
Homa admitted that having that knowledge still made things hard, because players like Rory McIlroy can play average, and still beat the field — something Homa said he’s not capable of.
Max Homa explains why it’s so important to win early in your career
“[The Genesis Invitational win] was the biggest difference, and the biggest leap,” Homa said. “When I won that week, my confidence shot through the roof. I knew that I went out there and I just played golf for four days. I didn’t feel like I did anything crazy special, I didn’t feel like there was a part of my game that was clicking like it’s never clicked before. I just played golf.
“That was big,” he continued. “Because ever since that event I’ve walked onto every other driving range since then with an immense amount of ease and confidence. I feel like I have my swagger from college back.”
The win at the Fortinet Championship was gratifying, Homa says, because he was doing what he felt like he was supposed to be doing.
“That first [win] felt like, all right, the stars aligned, everything was great,” Homa said. “The second one felt like, all right buddy, you need to start thinking like this a lot more often, and the third one felt like a product of thinking like that more often.”
For more from Homa, including why he embraced social media and why he thinks it’s so important to win early in your career, check out the full interview below.