LOS ANGELES — The cheers following Max Homa on Thursday did not seem to care about the bigger picture.
As Homa blasted his way around Los Angeles Country Club in the opening round at the U.S. Open, the noise followed suit, cascading over him in polite ovation after polite ovation. They chanted his name. They celebrated.
The cheers did not seem to know about the PGA Tour’s pending merger with the Saudi Public Investment Fund. They didn’t seem to realize there was a gray cloud cast over the event (both metaphorical and, in the case of the marine layer, literal). They didn’t seem to understand that the sanctity of pro golf’s future had been cast in doubt.
And for a few hours on Thursday, that was nice. It was very nice indeed.
This week has been called, mostly unofficially, the Homacoming. LA’s chosen golf son grew up just miles from the grounds of this year’s national championship and spent a chunk of his teenage and college years competing here. He knows the layout here. He knows the course here. He owns the course record here (a 61 in 2013 that was briefly challenged on Thursday). After an emotional victory at the Genesis Invitational sparked a breakout 2022, LA seemed almost too fitting a location for Homa’s first-career major championship.
But the Homacoming felt like an afterthought heading into tournament week. There were too many questions to answer about the future of professional golf, which had just days earlier been broadsided by an agreement to flood the sport with Saudi money.
Homa, it turned out, was the perfect candidate to answer some of them. A member of the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Committee, Homa has turned into an unlikely messenger for Tour changes and tweaks during the first part of this strange 2023 season. On Tuesday, though, he had as many questions as we did.
“I was on the phone quite a bit that Tuesday with players in a couple meetings, PAC meeting, whatever, and felt like I learned a ton,” Homa said. “And then it was in every article in the world, so I don’t think I am any more knowledgeable about this.”
But at the beginning of such an important week, there was something beautiful about ignorance.
“It’s actually nice to be as confused as I am here because I’m not really thinking about it anymore,” he said. “I’m ready to just go play golf.”
That turned out to be a wonderful edict, considering the circus that would soon arrive.
On Thursday, Homa welcomed two separate fan clubs. The first being his family, which made the drive just 18 miles down the 101 from his native Valencia to LACC. The second being, in the words of his wife, Lacey, “just about everyone he knows” — a group of friends who came in from all over the area to celebrate Max’s big week.
