Don’t try to understand it. It will blow your mind. Max Homa missed the cut by five strokes last week at the WM Phoenix Open, and just yesterday, ahead of the Genesis Invitational, he claimed that he had never hit the ball better in his life. “I know I’m doing the right thing, and for whatever reason, right now, golf doesn’t like me,” he stated.
In contrast, with the same conviction, he pointed out that he didn’t like how he was swinging at the end of 2023, when he was by far the best player in the United States at the Ryder Cup, won the Nedbank Golf Challenge on the DP World Tour, and was solidly in the world’s top 10. Now he’s 60th. “I know it sounds hilarious, but that’s how it is. I’ve had some good weeks in the last two years, but without consistency, now I believe I’m on the path to something much better.”
Indeed, it sounds hilarious. The issue is that Homa decided to make changes at the end of last season. After the Presidents Cup, he parted ways with his coach Mike Blackburn, who has also worked with Justin Rose, for example, and hired John Scott Rattan, director of instruction at Congressional and coach to golfers like Beau Hossler and Stewart Cink. He is therefore working on a new swing and has also made a change in his equipment. He switched from Titleist to Cobra. Many changes and very important ones in a short time.
Homa didn’t change coaches at the end of 2023, despite his own words that he no longer liked his swing. He did so at the end of 2024 because he fell beyond the 30th position in the world rankings and ended a six-month streak without a single top 10. However, this Tuesday, he argued that results should not dictate the line of work. “I know it’s hard to isolate from the results, but that’s what I try to do. My coach told me something funny in Phoenix, and he was right: if we add up all your shots, you’ve been just a couple of metres away from making two or three less instead of five more. That’s how this sport is,” he explains. Perhaps, we add, it’s those two metres that separate the very good from the best.
It’s very complicated to get into the minds of high-level athletes and try to understand it. Common sense dictates that what Max Homa expresses doesn’t make any sense, although on the other hand, it’s understandable. He has been working with the new coach for three months and needs to reaffirm every day that he made the right decision despite what reality reflects. It’s something that usually works in politics, where you try to adapt your speech to what you need or want to think, beyond what is actually happening. The last thing Homa needs right now is doubt and distrust. His position is already too weak.
The moral of this story, with Max Homa as the protagonist, although it could have been practically any other golfer, is whether the chicken or the egg comes first. That is, am I swinging badly, and that’s why the bad results start to come, or do the bad results come, and then I decide that the swing I’m making is bad? And conversely, do I feel great with my game at the moment, and that’s why the good results come, or do the good results come, and that’s why I’m hitting the ball like never before? How the question and answer are posed can determine whether a golfer’s career goes up or heads downhill without brakes.
