Weekly Recap: Saturday Night's Alright for Winning

It's hard to determine what's most impressive about Max Homa's six PGA Tour wins. Is it that they've come at hard golf courses? Is IT that they've come mostly in tough fields? Is it that in five of them he came from behind in the final round? Or is it simply that he's won SIX times?

Let's call it all of the above.

Homa rallied from five shots down at the start of the round to overtake a gallant but overmatched Sam Ryder and win the Farmers Insurance Open by two strokes over Keegan Bradley on Saturday at venerable Torrey Pines Golf Course. Ryder, bidding to go wire-to-wire for his first Tour win, wound up tied for fourth.

Homa has now won twice already this season, after winning twice last season. He will move up from a career-best 16th in the world rankings to a new personal best. The actual number will be determined after the rain-delayed DP World Tour event in Dubai concludes Monday.  

The 32-year-old has now won at Torrey Pines, Riviera (2021 Genesis Invitational), Quail Hollow (2019 Wells Fargo), TPC Potomac (2022 Wells Fargo) and twice at Silverado (2021-22 Fortinet). In all those wins, the winning score has ranged from 8-under at Potomac to 19-under at the 2021 Fortinet. There's a not a 20-under score in the bunch. Homa doesn't win birdie-fests (yet).

At the 2019 Wells Fargo for his first PGA Tour win, Homa fended off Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey, Rickie Fowler and Rory McIlroy. At the 2021 Genesis, the whole field was loaded. At the 2022 Wells Fargo, Bradley, Matt Fitzpatrick, Cameron Young and McIlroy were hot on his heels. Neither Fortinet field was as potent, but the first event of the new season certainly is well represented.

Homa matched the best round of the day, a 66, to close out his fourth victory in his native California. This year's Farmers field wasn't as strong as in recent years, but just about all the top guys in the field were on the first page of the leaderboard.

So Homa has been racking up big-boy wins, the ones that most closely mirror majors. But curiously, Homa's career in the four majors has been remarkably bad. He has made only five of 13 cuts, though three of them came last year, further illustrating his career arc.  Last year's T13 at the PGA Championship is his best result.

Surely Homa will say that one of his goals for 2023 is to perform better in the majors. Another goal should be to have more good weeks. It's hard to argue with five wins since 2021, but Homa has not had nearly as many top-10s as the most elite players. There were just six in 2021 and five in 2022. Homa is already two for two in 2023, however, with a tie for third at the Tournament of Champions his only other start.
 
In his post-tournament news conference, Homa shared that his confidence is becoming "more steady," and that he's been working with a sports psychologist. That should help him get more top-10s and play better in the majors. He's got the other stuff down pat.

"Obviously there's a ton of great players. That board was stacked," Homa told reporters. "But I just had to know that it's obviously a hard golf course. I just have to keep hitting good shots and keep hitting good putts. And you're going to make bogeys. You're going to make birdies. Winning takes a lot of luck, but it just takes a lot of patience."

SUNDAY BACKSPIN

Keegan Bradley
Bradley had the best weekend of anyone in the field, 68-66 (and by "weekend" we mean the final two rounds). He led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. As regular readers will know, we've been tracking Bradley's improved putting, and it's been clear he has an opportunity to really make an impact on this PGA Tour season. His normally elite approach play failed him on the par-5 18th on Saturday, costing him a chance to birdie and put pressure on Homa, but those instances won't happen often.
  
Collin Morikawa
Morikawa kicked away the Tournament of Champions earlier this month when he finished second to Jon Rahm. Here, he finished third. After a 2021-22 season in which Morikawa didn't play quite as well as his results indicated, he has come out in 2023 looking like the old Morikawa. And that's trouble for the rest of the PGA Tour. A win will come with better putting – he ranked 27th in the field for the week.

Sam Ryder
Ryder deserved so much more than a tie for fourth. He almost went wire to wire after shooting an opening-round 64 and still had the lead midway through the back nine on Saturday. But a double on 15 killed him, and there was another bogey on 17, leading to a 3-over 75. Ryder has two runners-up in his PGA Tour career – at the 2018 John Deere and 2021 Corales Puntacana – but this was by far the best showing of his career. This doesn't necessarily serve as a precursor to a new level of play for a golfer who finishes in the top-125 every year but not much more. Rather, it was one great week with a haunting "what-if."
 
Sahith Theegala
Chalk this up as another near-miss for a star-in-the-making still looking for his first Tour win. We'll next see Theegala in two weeks at Phoenix, where many golf fans first heard of him a year ago and where he had his first near-miss with a tie for third. Theegala will arrive at the Waste Management Open as a fan favorite and perhaps with some added pressure to complete the job from a year ago. Regardless of how that tournament ends, Theegala's first win is coming.

Sungjae Im
Im doesn't have as many wins as Homa does but, like Homa, he had never been ranked higher than 16th in the world before this week. He still won't get there, but a tie for fourth will keep him in the top-20. Im had his chances in the final round – he entered the day tied with Homa -- but just didn't do enough to win.

Jason Day
Day continued to show that he's back – maybe not to his former top-ranked self but to his best position in years. He tied for seventh, giving him a second top-10 and a sixth top-25 already this season. He will move back into the top-100 in the world. But he curiously will be skipping one of his go-tracks at Pebble Beach this week.

Jon Rahm
Bidding for a third straight win and a chance to become No. 1 in the world, Rahm simply didn't have it on Saturday. Beginning the day in contention, he shot a 2-over 74 and never got anything going. Rahm probably was a bit gassed after all this winning so far in 2023 – perhaps more mentally than physically. Rahm will take a week off, then play Phoenix and Riviera back to back, and it would surprise no one if he resumed his winning ways at one of those tournaments and did get to No. 1 in the world.

Rickie Fowler
To say that Fowler is "back" would be vast overstatement, but he's heading in the right direction for the first time in years. Fowler tied for 11th, and that comes on the heels of a runner-up and a T6 in the fall season. Notably at Torrey Pines, Fowler tied for 10th in Strokes Gained: Putting. He was ranked 171st on Tour coming in. So even consistent mediocre putting would be a huge help. Fowler was hurt at the Amex by some big numbers, and that happened again on Saturday with a crushing double on 16th that cost him a third top-10 already this season.

Sam Stevens
It's been a rough start to the season for the Korn Ferry grad. The 26-year-old had made only three of his first eight cuts. Now he's added a fourth, and a second straight, with his best result yet, a tie for 13th.

Erik Barnes
The 35-year-old had played just three career PGA Tour events before graduating from the Korn Ferry Tour for 2022-23. He's made only four of 10 cuts this season, but he turned in a tie for 13th at the Farmers, his best showing after a T10 at the RSM.

Luke List
List had been awful since winning the Farmers last year. He had missed 13 of 27 cuts in the past 12 months heading into the week. But Torrey Pines was a bit of a tonic for someone close to tumbling out of the top-100 in the world. List tied for 25th, just his third top-25 since last year's tournament.

Will Zalatoris
Zalatoris doesn't miss many cuts – just three in all of 2022. So he's not perfect. But missing at Torrey Pines definitely qualifies as a surprise. The long, hard course is the type of track where Zalatoris excels and separates himself from the field.

Bill Haas
While Haas' game had been going south for years, you could almost always count on him to make the Farmers cut. He had made five straight there and nine of 10. Now, even that has caught up to him with a missed cut, his ninth in his past 10 starts. Haas is ranked close to 600th in the world.

Harris English
English has gone T73-MC-MC in 2023, and it's clear he has not been the same since returning from hip surgery last year.

Kurt Kitayama
It's only two tournaments, but Kitayama followed up a T73 at the Sony with a missed cut at Torrey Pines. Not a great way to start 2023 after his breakthrough 2022.

Cam Davis
It has not been a good start to 2023 for the big Aussie. After tying for 32nd at the Sony, Davis has missed back-to-back cuts at the Amex and now the Farmers.