You could be Max Homa

Photo illustration by Craig Hill/PGA TOUR

You could never burn as bright as the PGA TOUR’s best, and that’s sort of the point. It’s why the most incandescent talents – Rory McIlroy and his celestial drives; Jon Rahm winning four times already this year; Scottie Scheffler going back-to-back at the WM Phoenix Open and going deep again at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play – play on TV while you just watch.

But you could be Max Homa.

Oh, not the golf part, where the Wells Fargo Championship’s defending champion has won six times in four years and risen to seventh in the world. After some early struggles (more on that later) Homa is as incandescent as the rest. It’s just that there’s something so relatable about him that your mirror neurons pop and fizzle, drawing you in.

Cute, right? It drew 776 comments at last glance, many from fellow players. One was Brittany Lincicome, one was John Mallinger, and you stopped counting after that, but the point is: 776 comments! You could see yourself making such a post, beaming at your great good fortune with the sun at your back.

You, too, would likely hire a childhood buddy to caddie for you if you hit the big time, and you can vibe with Homa’s public education (Valencia High, University of California at Berkeley). In Homa you recognize the self-awareness. The gratitude. You imagine shaking your head in wonder after your 72nd-hole chip-in and Danny Willett’s three-putt from 3 1/2 feet dropped the season-opening Fortinet Championship trophy in your lap last fall.

Oh, and you, too, would look like a kid on Christmas day for your first appearance on a U.S. team at the Presidents Cup a week later. (Homa went 4-0-0.)

Wait. You would do these things? That’s not quite right, because the relationship between an athlete and his fans is aspirational. (“Be like Mike” and “I am Tiger Woods” and so forth.) Better to say you hope that you would emulate Homa. You hope that you could summon the eloquence to explain – with a sincerity that cuts through the Presidents Cup’s preamble – how no amount of money could replace the feeling of playing on one of those teams.

You hope that you would see the bigger picture and be the first player to pop in earbuds and talk to CBS while playing the par-5 13th hole in the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines South in January. And you hope that while everyone was still clucking about that decision (Evolved? Egregious?) you would shoot 66 the next day to win. (OK, probably a longshot with your slice.)

It's the social media stuff that is most relatable.

You, too, could tweet about the world ranking, the Lakers, your dog, missed putts, dirty dishes, and Sammy Spieth. And if Tiger Woods praised your game in the company of Justin Thomas, Tom Kim, Matt Fitzpatrick and others – “I like his move,” Woods said of Homa at the Hero World Challenge in December – you can only assume you would in turn post on social media, “Thank U. @TigerWoods. I think u have a good swing as well.”

Despite that dizzying praise – and three-time Wells Fargo champion McIlroy saying of Homa last year, “He’s way too good a player to lose his card” – you know that you, like Homa, could forget how to play this game. You, too, could miss 15 PGA TOUR cuts in 2015, and 15 more in ’17. You, too, could wrestle with imposter syndrome, ricocheting between the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour until capturing win No. 1 at the 2019 Wells Fargo.

You could imagine poking fun at yourself for that, as Homa did at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans two weeks ago, laughing about getting schooled by his partner, the younger Cal Golf product Collin Morikawa, at the Korn Ferry’s 2016 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Wichita Open. (Homa missed the cut; then-amateur Morikawa nearly won.)

And if you got to partner up with Morikawa, you, too, might have designed “Homakawa” jerseys in the style of your L.A. Dodgers, because this is all a gift, and why not enjoy it? (Perhaps front-loading the fun took the sting out of a missed cut.) Conversely, you could see yourself choking back tears after losing to Rahm at The Genesis Invitational earlier this year, since the year you won your hometown tournament (2021) was amid the pall of Covid and without your friends and family, with whom you so badly wanted to share the victory.

Of course, you’re not him. You know that. You sit at a desk all day and dream of playing in Maui, or a trip to Bandon Dunes. You once imagined taking on the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass whilst firing plastic golf balls at a half-deflated raft in someone else’s leafy swimming pool.

No doubt you’ll watch the (Designated event) Wells Fargo this week, all those incandescent talents. You’ll be there for it, you and thousands of others, as Homa tries for his third tournament title on one of his favorite tracks on TOUR. For him it’s all a gift, more forever memories await, and while you could never burn as bright, you, her, him, that kid over there, you could all be Max Homa (not that it’s particularly helpful).