Max Homa wins wild Fortinet Championship

NAPA, Calif. – After a long, slow slog in the rain, everything changed in an instant.

Max Homa pitched in from 33 feet, Danny Willett three-putted from 3 1/2, and it was over. With the stunning birdie-bogey exchange at the par-5 finishing hole at Silverado Resort & Spa, Homa had successfully defended his Fortinet Championship title.

“That was crazy,” he said after a final-round 68 that netted his fifth PGA TOUR victory by a shot over Willett and three shots over rookie Taylor Montgomery (64). “I still don’t really know what happened. It was one of those weekends you just had to hang around.”

Homa has now won three times in just over a year and will head into this week’s Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club as arguably the fastest rising player on the U.S. Team.

His wife, Lacey, who is expecting the couple’s first child, a boy, in early November, followed the action despite the weather. Although this was the fifth win for Homa and caddie Joe Greiner, it was the first witnessed by Greiner’s fiancé, Mayla. All were planning on boarding a private jet that would arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the dark early Tuesday morning.

For most of Sunday afternoon at soggy Silverado it looked like Homa would finish second. He had hit his second shot into the front bunker on 18 when Willett knocked his approach tight. It looked like Willett, who finished third at the 2015 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, would have another indelible memory of playing great in Northern California.

Then everything changed.

“It was probably the most unexpected finish,” said Greiner. “As a caddie you’re always expecting the unexpected, but once Danny hit his approach to three or four feet, I felt our chances of making the bunker shot were pretty low. I just told (Homa) to hit it on the green and make the putt to at least make him have to make it to win.”

Willett, 34, was closing in on his first TOUR title since the 2016 Masters. Once his opponent’s third shot from the bunker didn’t reach the green, the tournament looked over.

“The sand was a little wet,” said Greiner, “and he didn’t have much green to work with. He was doing his best to spin it as much as he could and just came underneath it a bit.”

Said Homa, “I kind of had to assume he was going to make it and I kind of went for the hero bunker shot and didn't quite catch it.” No matter, he chipped in from 33 feet, nearly taking off Greiner’s hand with a high-five as the fans erupted.

Willett smiled, then unraveled.

“I hit it obviously far too hard,” he said of his birdie try, which flew by the hole and left him a longer putt for par, from 4 feet, 8 inches. “And on the way back … I thought it was straighter. Again, yeah, just ended up tailing off and missing left.

“Yeah, disappointing way to finish,” he continued, “but you know, first out of the season, like I said, to be in contention, things are in a good place. Yeah, we'll live to fight another day.”

Justin Lower (73, T4) took a one-shot lead into Sunday, but it came down to Homa and Willett on the back nine. Homa would have been the favorite, coming off a career-best, two-win season and advancing to the TOUR Championship first the first time, where he tied for 5th.

But while he briefly pulled even with birdies on 9, 10 and 11, he never led until 18.

Tee times were moved up due to the forecast, and rain brought relief to drought-stricken Northern California. It also brought Homa and Willett to the forefront. Homa won the Wells Fargo Championship in May at rain plagued TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Willett smiled at the mention of bad weather. He had a three-shot lead through eight but made a three-putt bogey at the ninth as Lower and Homa each birdied to cut the lead to one.

Homa and Willett pulled away with more birdies and Lower fell off the pace.

A shot behind with five, four, three, two, one hole remaining, Homa told himself that the moment he tried to force the issue would be the moment he played his way out of contention. His coach, Mark Blackburn, preached patience all week. Greiner preached patience all day. And it paid off, albeit in a way no one could have expected.

After he won the 2021 Fortinet, Homa admitted he sometimes had a hard time with self-belief. This year, though, upon noting he was the pre-tournament favorite, he was good with it.

“Oddly, it felt OK,” he said. “It didn't feel like too much pressure.”

Added Greiner before they all headed to the airport, “That’s part of mine and Mark’s deal is to tell him how good he is, and the day he believes it he might not even need us at all.”