At the PGA, golf’s most vulnerable stars open up on an unusual challenge

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — You could feel the tenor of the press room shift as Max Homa arrived after firing a second-round 64 on Friday at the PGA Championship.

On a day filled with terse questions-and-answers, short quips and unbearable cliches, the world somehow knew Homa’s presser would be the opposite before he’d opened his mouth. Once Homa started, he talked for half an hour, and the transcript of his answers eventually filled five full pages. Discussion topics included the traditionally untouched terrain of caddie breakups, golf psychology and the on-again, off-again nature of a complete swing overhaul.

In 30 minutes, Homa welcomed the world into his process, covering more professional territory than most players in the field at this week’s PGA will cover in a year, maybe even a lifetime. And most impressive of all? Nobody was surprised. Seconds after shooting the round of the day at a major championship, Homa’s dizzying array of self-effacingness had hardly raised an eyebrow.

That was, until the 20th minute of his presser, when a reporter posed an innocent question that proved surprisingly revealing: Does Homa feel his vulnerability helps his golf?

“No, it probably doesn’t help me at all if I’m being honest,” Homa said in a characteristic deadpan. “I don’t know, I grew up a fan of sports, as so many are, and I always found it really thought-provoking as a fan to get a little insight. Like I said, we are entertainers, and without the fans, we would be just playing golf with some buddies.”

Homa’s presser sped on at its usual soul-baring pace after that answer, but his words lingered. Golf is a painstakingly mental sport, and those who love it know the most interesting stories happen in the six inches between the ears. Vulnerable questions tend to elicit vulnerable answers, but have we ever considered the cost of receiving them?

At Quail Hollow and at every golf tournament this year, it is clear that many of Homa’s counterparts have done the calculus. Many star golfers relish in revealing very little of themselves in their engagements with the press, believing there is divinity in discretion. It’s hard enough to navigate an inconquerable sport when the whole world’s watching, they figure, but it’s much harder when the world knows exactly what you’re thinking.

For many years, Rory McIlroy was the poster child of this debate. McIlroy’s penchant for unusually self-effacing answers turned him into a media darling with a laundry list of sponsors, but his willingness to “go there” despite repeated failures in big moments raised questions about whether “going there” was actually contributing to the failures. (It’s unclear if Rory McIlroy’s nauseating victory at Augusta ended that debate, or merely confirmed it.)

As with so much else in golf, the answer to this question is unknowable. Performance is tethered inextricably to personality. But it says something that McIlroy and Homa have thought about the benefits of stepping out of the spotlight. In the depths of his major championship drought in 2022, McIlroy spent several months experimenting with near-zero media on major weeks. As Homa climbed out of an ugly swing spiral in early 2025, he questioned the merits of his media exposure.

“Yeah, I just try to be myself,” Homa said. “Sometimes I wish I would probably keep some things in, but at the end of the day, we owe a lot to the fans. It’s not so hard to be transparent. It doesn’t hurt me in any way.”

Few know a crisis of media faith better than Bryson DeChambeau. The reigning U.S. Open champ — and golf YouTube megastar — underwent a prolonged absence from media in 2021 after public filletings for his handling of controversies with Brooks Koepka, his equipment sponsors, and his home tour. For months DeChambeau sat out press conferences and skipped media availabilities, apparently believing it was better to avoid speaking at all than to do so and insert his foot into his mouth.

DeChambeau’s public image was at its lowest when he started posting to YouTube in early 2022, but the rehabilitation of the last several years has been nothing short of extraordinary. He entered the PGA Championship at Quail not only as one of the field’s two or three most significant superstars, but also as one of the preeminent betting favorites.

If McIlroy and Homa count as vulnerability agnostics (or at the very least vulnerability-questioning), DeChambeau qualifies as a born-again evangelist. His openness has been more than a component in his surge from incredible bulk to swashbuckling everyman — it’s been the propellant behind it.

“I think it’s important the way it’s presented,” DeChambeau said Friday. “Coming from a lighthearted position, sometimes the openness can be scary. I commend Max for being that way, and I think people should respect him for that. I was very much like that early on.”

During his press conference on Friday, Bryson seemed outwardly surprised to hear Homa’s admission of uncertainty. (“Oh, really?” he said. “I wouldn’t know that at all.”) Still, DeChambeau said, his own exposure is more calculated than it looks. Like the late New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, golf’s showman believes in the virtue of an open mind … just not so open his brains fall out.

“I’m a little more focused on what I’m going to say, what I intend to say now,” he said. “But I think it’s great. The more players that we can have that are more open out here, I think that’s only going to benefit the game of golf.”

At the PGA, there is little doubt the sport benefits from the relatability of its stars. Thousands packed the ropelines to see DeChambeau and Homa plunge into contention with low scores on Friday morning, while McIlroy’s “super group” with Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler was so crowded it ground foot traffic to a halt on a 90-degree afternoon. That central piece of live golf — the intimacy with star players — was only amplified by the connection the audience already felt.

But as DeChambeau neared the end of an unusually short presser on Friday afternoon, he reminded us the relationship between vulnerability and golf doesn’t have to be causal. After a few minutes of peeved self-assessment after a good-but-not-great second round, a reporter prompted DeChambeau about the pitfalls of openness and golf stardom, and his mood lightened.

“I think once you see how much good we actually can do for the game and what we’re trying to do for the game, I hope people can see that for the light it is,” DeChambeau said. “I commend Max for doing that. For me, yeah, you can say there’s been times where I’ve been too open. Now it’s a matter of just showing more of who I am.”

DeChambeau smiled as he finished his answer. It was a nice sentiment, and it’d cost him nothing.