Max Homa (-5) has recorded a sensational round of 64 strokes on the second day of the PGA Championship. He has matched the lowest score in a Major at Quail Hollow. It is also his best round in a major. At last. The expressive Californian player seems to have found the oasis after a long journey through the desert. Or rather, he has seen the light at the end of the darkest alley in golf. The one that golfers often find themselves in and don’t always get out of.
At the end of last year, after a mediocre season, Homa decided to make an almost 180-degree turn in his golf. He changed coaches, hired the services of John Scott, and signed with a new club brand. Just a few weeks ago, Homa claimed he was hitting the ball like never before in his life and was more than convinced that he was on the right track. However, the reality was that the results were not coming. Until the Masters, he had played eight tournaments, with five missed cuts, all consecutive.
Then, Homa sat down with Scott and explained in the best possible way that he wanted a change. “It was difficult because I felt very broken. I thought the swing change had to be something radical. We were in a session on the practice field and nothing was working. Everything he said made sense, but I didn’t feel like it was me. I said: ‘I want to try this my way and tell me if it looks good.’ He immediately said yes, and that we would work from that as a model. It was tough because I don’t want to disrespect John or Mark, who are brilliant. But sometimes you have to say: ‘This may be technically correct, but I don’t feel like I can do it.’ He understood, and that helped a lot.
Now I feel like it’s more my swing. It looks more like when I played my best golf. Before, it seemed like it wasn’t my swing,” he confessed.
Homa, the penultimate inhabitant of that dark alley of golf. The last in a long list to throw caution to the wind to change the swing in search of the Holy Grail and soon after has to retrace his steps to the starting point. We say penultimate because soon we will know the story of the next one. It’s a kind of epidemic. For every one that goes well, there are nine that get left behind. “If I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that it’s not good to change swing and coach at the same time,” Homa concluded. Seems logical, right? Well, there will be more inhabitants of the alley in the future. Don’t doubt it.
