Inside the Numbers: Max Homa’s ascent

Perhaps no player on the PGA TOUR has seen his star ascend as quickly the last 24 months as Max Homa.

His emotional victory two years ago at Riviera seemingly strapped rocket boosters to an already-rising career. Quickly, he grew into one of the most prolific winners on TOUR: since the 2021 Genesis Invitational began, Homa’s five wins are tied for most of any player, alongside Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy. Long known for his affable demeanor and humorous social media game, Homa’s on-course achievements have now caught up to his off-course presence.

Statistically, how has Max evolved into one of the best players on TOUR? His rise is less overnight success, but more a testament to the steady growth of a maturing pro.

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Homa’s ascent into the upper tier of PGA TOUR performers has been steady since 2018-19. He’s gone from 117th on TOUR in scoring average that season, to 102nd, to 60th, to 23rd in 2021-22. That makes him one of five qualified players to have improved his PGA TOUR scoring average rank each of the previous three seasons. The others to do it are Luke List, Russell Henley, Sam Burns and Seamus Power. What’s even more impressive about Homa is that he’s improving yet again early in 2022-23: he’s currently 11th in the statistic this season.

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Over the last 12 months, Homa is ranked sixth on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Total per round (+1.74). The hallmark of Homa’s statistical profile during this span is that he doesn’t have many weaknesses. Case in point: Homa is the only player on the PGA TOUR in that stretch to average +0.30 Strokes Gained per round in each of the four key disciplines: Off-the-Tee, Approach the Green, Around the Green and Putting.

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One of the most impressive things about Homa’s recent on-course performance has been his consistency. Through the end of the 2020-21 PGA TOUR season, Homa had shown his lofty ceiling, picking up two wins – but had missed 60 cuts in 127 career starts to that point. Since the start of last season, though, Homa has missed only three cuts in 30 tournaments – and none since The Open Championship last July.

+1.93

Homa has been especially lethal in his home state of California, where he’s picked up four of his six career PGA TOUR wins. Over the last 10 years, that’s tied with Jon Rahm for most official victories in the Golden State. Since the beginning of 2020, Homa is 123 under par in PGA TOUR events in California, the fourth-best cumulative sum in that stretch. He’s also among the leaders in Strokes Gained: Total (fifth), birdies-or-better per round (seveth) and Strokes Gained: Putting.

+0.9

Homa’s balanced excellence through the bag flashes in California, too. Since the beginning of 2020, Max Homa is one of just two qualified players to average at least 0.9 Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (Off-the-Tee + Approach) and 0.9 Strokes Gained: Short Game (Around-the-Green + Putting) per round in PGA TOUR events in the state. Daniel Berger is the other.

5’0”

At minimum, Homa has been an above-average iron player over the last five years. But his development into one of the game’s best has correlated strongly with a step up in his Strokes Gained: Approach numbers. In 2019-20, Homa ranked a respectable 84th on TOUR in that statistic, gaining a little over one-tenth of a stroke per round on the field with his approach shots. He’s now ranked in the top-20 on TOUR in that stat. A key yardage bracket where he’s seen the most improvement has been from 175 to 200 yards away. In 2020, he was just one inch better than the TOUR average from that range. Now? A full 5 feet better than the TOUR mean.

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Homa’s short game numbers have improved steadily as well over the last several seasons. His rank in the always significant scrambling statistic is emblematic of that: Max is 20th this season getting it up-and-down, an improvement of 62 spots over where he ranked in both 2021 and 2022 (82nd). Homa is currently 21st on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Around the Green this year. If he continues on that pace, it will be his fourth season in a row improving his TOUR ranking in that metric.

44.6%

As if all of that wasn’t enough, Homa’s also putting it brilliantly in 2022-23. Hitting approach shots closer inherently provides a player with more realistic birdie opportunities. Not only is Homa hitting it closer, more often – he’s making the putts, too (eighth on TOUR this season in birdie conversion percentage). Last year, Max made just 23.8 percent of his putts from 10 to 15 feet away, ranked 180th on TOUR. That number has skyrocketed to 44.6% early in ’22-23, a rate bettered by only two players.

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When Homa won the Farmers Insurance Open last month, he became just the sixth player to win an official PGA TOUR event at both Torrey Pines and The Riviera Country Club. Each of the previous five men to achieve the feat are also major champions, with four of them winning at least one Masters title. A marquee major championship performance is seemingly the next box for Homa to tick on the career checklist: his best major finish was a tie for 13th last May at Southern Hills.