BLAINE, Minn. — Max Homa needs to win this week. Of course, everyone does, but Homa really does. Let him explain.
“My wife’s pregnant and I need to go home,” Homa said Thursday, after a first-round 66 had him tied for 18th and six off the pace at TPC Twin Cities, where Adam Svensson took the early lead with a course-record 60. “We have, like, two weeks left. It’s a little extra stressful, but I think the only way that you can go out and win a golf tournament is by not exactly trying to win a golf tournament. So it’s a weird headspace.”
The reason Homa can’t go home yet, though, is because he needs to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs. With two weeks left in the regular season, he’s 102nd in the FedEx Cup standings. While he doesn’t have to worry about keeping his PGA Tour card (he’s exempt through 2028), he has only the 3M and next week’s Wyndham Championship to squeeze into the top 70 and make the FedEx St. Jude Championship and first leg of the playoffs.
But a victory could make life that much easier — winless streak snapped, playoff spot secured and flight home booked; no Wyndham stop in North Carolina required.
As for now, he’s playing the Wyndham (he said his wife told him to) and is flying home immediately after. He’s ready to make a trip sooner if needed though. Last week at the Barracuda Championship he had two missed calls from his wife, who is due the first week of August, and said he freaked out.
“I can’t handle the stress right now,” he said then.
On Thursday, he said, “Every day I finish a day of golf I look at my phone and see if I’m flying home, so we’ll see. It’s a good problem to have.”
After a two-win 2023 and T9 finish at the Tour Championship, Homa was winless last season but made 18 of 22 cuts and had eight top 25s, getting to the BMW Championship but falling short of making it to East Lake for the first time in three years. This season, it’s been a slightly bumpier ride. He’s made 10 of 18 cuts with just one top 10, and he missed both the U.S. Open and Open Championship. It was the first time he’s missed two majors in a season in six years.
He missed five straight cuts from February to April, but a T12 at the Masters got him back on track. He’s missed just two cuts in the nine events since and earlier this month tied for fifth at the John Deere Classic, his best finish of the season.
On Thursday, Homa didn’t make a bogey and didn’t miss a green (the first time in his career he’s went 18 for 18 in greens in regulation). He finished on the front nine and birdied two of the last three, bending his knees as the ball circled the cup to add his final birdie from 11 feet on the last.
“I played awesome, probably the worst I could have shot,” Homa said. “Hit it so well. Rolled it fine, just couldn’t really make a lot of putts. It was nice to lip one in on the last. Just a really good round of golf.”
Now, he’ll have to keep it up. The field goes low at TPC Twin Cities, even when it’s not preferred lies like it was on Thursday.
“I know what I need to do, I need to play unbelievable,” he said. “Fortunately my game’s felt awesome the last month or so, so yeah, just got to, I don’t know, I don’t know how you just make yourself win. I’m just trying to keep doing what I’m doing and see what happens on a Sunday.”
