Max Homa paused. He knew what he was about to say would make no sense to an outside observer.

Just a few days earlier, he shot 76-69 to miss the cut at the WM Phoenix Open by five shots. It appeared to be a continuation of Homa’s poor play, another defeating, puzzling result in a list of disappointments that has grown longer than he ever hoped as his form deteriorated.

Homa saw it as a turning point. The result didn’t replicate how he felt. Not at all.

“That's what's so odd about last week is that is the best I swung the golf club like potentially – this is going to sound crazy, but potentially ever,” Homa said Tuesday at Torrey Pines ahead of The Genesis Invitational.

Go ahead and laugh, Homa has heard worse. He’s also adamant he’s played much worse. Golfers are defined by their results and Homa’s have been bad. He’s not denying that. But he believes he’s improving, regardless of the scores he’s posting.

Homa felt more freedom with his driver, the club that precipitated his decline last summer, swinging freely to small targets at TPC Scottsdale. The ball wasn’t moving off his intended line and he left encouraged by his game, albeit confused the scores didn’t translate. NBC Sports analyst Smylie Kaufmann, who walked with Homa’s group in Phoenix, posted on X that he “couldn’t agree more.”

It marks one of the first bits of optimism for Homa over the last 10 months. Since he contended on the weekend of last year’s Masters, ultimately finishing T3, Homa hasn’t felt comfortable. He’s carded just one top-20 finish since and dropped to No. 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking, his worst spot in the rankings since February 2021. He’s had one-off strong weeks, like a T8 at the Truist Championship and a solid performance at the Presidents Cup, but he said his game didn’t feel sustainable.

“Golf does not like me at the moment,” Homa said.

That led Homa to change coaches in the fall, ending his relationship with longtime coach Mark Blackburn before the Presidents Cup. He briefly worked independently before picking up swing coach John Scott Rattan. The two worked on getting Homa to cover the ball, keeping his chest moving through impact. He also changed equipment manufacturers, joining Cobra after a long stint with Titleist.

The desired results have been elusive. He ranks 177th in Strokes Gained: Approach through six weeks of the season. He missed the cut at the WM Phoenix Open, and he was on his way toward the same at Torrey Pines a few weeks ago, ultimately withdrawing midway through the second round during a weather delay. He finished T26 of the 59-man field at The Sentry and was 53rd of the 80-man field at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

“I've been incredibly frustrated since April,” Homa said. “But I also see -- I find pride in waking up after a hard day and having the energy to go get better.

“I do think at the end of all my days … if I never have another good result again that would be a massive bummer, but I could rest easy, maybe in some years I could rest easy knowing I'm doing absolutely everything I possibly can to do that,” Homa added. “I've always been quite proud of my work ethic, I think that's why I'm here. I think it's my best quality and has been ramped up about a thousand notches.”

Homa shot himself out of the WM Phoenix Open with his opening round 76, which featured two birdies, four bogeys, and a double-bogey. He gained strokes with his driver and on the greens, but it was the iron play that let him down again. Kauffman hypothesized that had more to do with over-aggression than poor swings, another indication the swing might be rounding into form.

Based in Scottsdale, Homa was back at the range working on Saturday working with Rattan after the missed cut at the WM Phoenix Open. Homa’s caddie Joe Greiner was there, too. They worked for several hours on the same fundamentals as always. Homa left frustrated, not by the lack of progress, but by the lack of results.

“I was really tired and like really frustrated just with everything going on with my own golf game,” Homa said. “On the drive back I just had a nice moment where I just thought to myself how much better the next win's going to feel than any win has felt.”

Homa also took solace in a quote from Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jalen Hurts.

“He said, ‘I've had purpose long before anybody had an opinion about it.’ It stuck with me,” Homa said. “It just made me realize like however the score is looking to those like outward, like last week would never make sense to anybody unless you're part of like my tiny little thing, you would never think that we made progress. It would look like another kind of red X on the year. I think that that's going to be like a major stepping stone and something we'll all look back on.”