‘Helps to get hurt’: Max Homa’s painful day includes confusing lessons

As Max Homa finished out on the 9th hole at Black Desert Resort on Friday, he shook hands with his caddie, handed off his putter and doubled over in pain.

It was the end of a confusing Friday at the Bank of Utah Championship — a painful, trying, ultimately successful Friday in what Homa expects will be his final tournament of the year.

“I don’t know for sure, but I have a pretty good-sized bone spur on the top of my ankle. I’ve had it for a little while,” Homa said after limping through his second round. He’d been planning on getting it removed during his golfing offseason. But his ankle seems particularly eager to get to that offseason. Homa was in visible discomfort for much of his second round.

“It almost never gets inflamed, but I think this place is pretty hard to walk. Walking down just a small hill on 12, like I didn’t feel anything, but as we were walking down the fairway on 12 I could feel it getting swollen. Then when we were done on 12 it was very, very tender,” he said. “Then I don’t know, just not a good golf course to walk. Walking uphill is really hard because I can’t flex it, so that sucked.”

But there’s a canyon between what Homa felt and what he shot. By day’s end there still wasn’t a blemish on his scorecard but there were five birdies, including three in his final six holes as he clambered his way inside the top 10.

Beware the injured golfer, they say. Homa has some idea why that is.

“In some way like, yesterday I played so well and I just get in my own way so much,” he said, referencing Thursday’s 70, which included six birdies but also three bogeys and a double. “It honestly helps to get hurt at times because I don’t remember thinking about my golf swing, I don’t remember thinking about really anything much. Just get it through. Get it to the house,” Homa said.

“If I hit a bad shot but it was in play, I was happy with it? So, yeah, I think you learn a lot from that. Hopefully I can get this thing figured out. Just was like not very fun walking.”

To be clear, Homa is not interested in your sympathy. But he does recognize that there may be lessons to learn from the fact that he made limited mistakes despite — or thanks to — his pain.

“Over the ball it’s fine. Through the hit is not great, but it’s manageable,” he said. “I don’t know. I kept thinking about my wife had a horrendous birth with our first son and she had major, major surgery, and there is just no way I could complain about a hurt ankle while I walked. That one really — she gets me through a lot. She couldn’t look at me the same. Yeah, this is nothing. It’s just more of a pain.”

Had he considered withdrawing? The thought crossed his mind, Homa admitted. But still…

“I mean, for a moment, only just because if it doesn’t get better I just couldn’t see myself doing this for two more days,” he said. “But, yeah, probably not. I just can’t. I don’t want to do that. I love being here. I really like how my golf game feels. It’s my last event of the year and it’s just annoying to walk, so I can deal with that.”

If this is indeed Homa’s final event of 2025, it’s a fitting finish: frustrating, but with plenty of promise. He’s strung together several strong finishes in recent weeks — three top-20s in his last six starts, including a T5 at the John Deere Classic — but never quite found his form in a season that featured changes to his coach, his caddie, his clubs. Unlike some of his peers, he doesn’t need to improve his standing this fall to retain status for 2026; he has several years of exempt status remaining. Still…

“Yeah, it’s not, but it’s just nice to feel good about the game,” Homa said, asked why this week it so important. “It’s been trending for sure the last couple months. Came in here with a lot of confidence in what I was doing. You know, had it going yesterday and just punted that, so it was nice to come out today and play the way I knew I could.”

The bone spur, he added, came out of nowhere.

“I never feel this. I just have terrible dorsiflexion in my ankle. This never affects me at all,” he said. “This is like the second time in a year it’s popped up, and never in a tournament.”

In all, Homa raved about the event site — Black Desert Resort is playing Tour host for a second time — and the tournament.

“It’s a phenomenal golf course. The greens are great. I love how firm it’s getting,” he said. “Surprised I didn’t come here last year after how cool this place is.”

And with the help of some KT Tape and some Advil, he’ll spend two more days fighting frustrating pain in that beautiful setting.

“It was hard to tell if anything helped,” he concluded. “Birdies helped a little bit. Yeah, it’ll be all right. It’s not that big of a deal.

“People deal with a lot worse.”