SAN DIEGO — Max Homa gained a significant social media following by interacting with fans and very humorously critiquing their golf swings, a practice he’s stopped and revived at times, one that was all in fun.

Analyzing his own swing of late has proven to be far more difficult.

And it’s been no fun at all.

Homa, the lone bright spot on the 2023 U.S. Ryder Cup team who finished third last year at the Masters, has been in a slump that has seen his Official World Golf Ranking plummet to 60th.

That puts him in danger of missing the U.S. Open and the British Open, something unheard of at this time a year ago.

“Golf does not like me at the moment,” Homa said, noting that last week at his home in Arizona, he finally felt he had turned the corner in his practice—only to miss the cut by five strokes at the WM Phoenix Open.

He is playing this week at the Genesis Invitational, which has been moved from Riviera in Los Angeles to Torrey Pines, where three weeks ago Homa withdrew from the Farmers Insurance Open after a first-round 77.

In Thursday’s first round, he bogeyed three of his first four holes and was 3 over on his first nine.

“The Masters is the last good golf tournament I played,” he said. “I think I got eighth or seventh at (the Wells Fargo Championship where he tied for eighth). I drove it awful there. I’ve been swinging it very poorly since right after the Nedbank (in South Africa in the fall of 2023). I won there and I wasn’t really swinging it well going into it, to be honest.

“I swung it really well at the Ryder Cup that year and then took a bit of time off and I don’t know, it just like never really came back. I had a nice little run, played well at the Valero and played well at Augusta and thought O.K., I kind of got it and I’ve really never hit the ball well since then.”

Homa, 34, has no top-10 finishes since the Wells Fargo (now the Truist Championship), his best a tie for 14th in a return to the Nedbank. His tied for 22nd at the Memorial is his best on the PGA Tour. Two weeks ago, he tied for 53rd at Pebble Beach.

Although he had a good week at the Presidents Cup “there’s been so few weeks I can hold onto like that.”

Homa changed coaches late last year, leaving longtime instructor Mark Blackburn before the Presidents Cup, working on his own, then going with swing coach John Scott Rattan.

So far, the changes have been slow to kick in. He was playing the first round of the Genesis on Thursday afternoon,

“I had a moment in my car leaving practice Saturday after the Waste Management,” Homa said. “We had a long day, my coach fortunately stayed, my caddie came out, we had a very long day at the golf course. I was really tired and like really frustrated just with everything going on with my own golf game.

“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. It stinks, but I’m not going to—not that I’ve ever taken anything for granted, but I know what that sweet relief of a great finish will kind of feel like. So I’m just trying to hold onto that as my motivating factor at the moment.”

Homa has struggled previously. In 2017, he made just two cuts in 17 tournaments. The 2013 NCAA individual champion at Cal, Homa had several years of searching before breaking through to win in 2018, winning a total of six times on the PGA Tour.

He’s been a strong U.S. player at two Presidents Cups and a Ryder Cup as well.

Trying to find his game at Torrey Pines is not the best recipe. The course played difficult three weeks ago due to cool and windy conditions when Harris English was the winner.

Now, it has been cold and damp, with rain Wednesday and Thursday.

“If you don’t drive it well on the South course, you could manage, but it’s very uncommon someone can go win swinging it like I did a couple weeks ago,” he said. “But I’m not swinging it like that anymore … I hate playing golf courses that I love poorly, so it’s actually quite nice for me to be here only a few weeks later and kind of wipe the stink off a little bit.”