Max Homa raised eyebrows when assessing his game at last week’s WM Phoenix Open. 

“What’s so odd about last week is that is the best I swung the golf club like potentially—this is going to sound crazy, but potentially ever,” Homa said Tuesday ahead of the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines, the site of his last win in 2023.

Why does that quote have shock value? Because he missed the cut, shooting 76-69. 

But despite seeing a silver lining, it was another lackluster result amid a grim stretch that has left Homa “incredibly frustrated since April.”

Twelve months ago, the Californian had been a top-10 player in the world for over a year. He finished T4 at the Masters, but calls that “the last good golf tournament I played.” He’s since fallen to No. 60 in the world and is No. 140 on Tour in strokes-gained total and No. 170 in strokes-gained tee to green. In 2023, Homa was ninth in strokes-gained total and 15th in tee to green. 

“Golf does not like me at the moment,” Homa said.

This season, Homa made an equipment change, signing with Cobra after many years with Titleist. Sometimes, that can throw a player into a transitional period, but Homa doesn’t believe his new clubs are the reasons for his struggles. 

“I think something that really bothers me about how poorly I played is that I’m not giving or showing how great the Cobra stuff is, to be quite honest,” the 34-year-old said. 

Instead, he knows exactly where to point the finger. 

“It’s my own fault I’ve played poorly,” he said, “but there’s been no golf club issue. There’s been no swing where I make a good one and I think to myself, ‘I wonder if that would have flown better with a different golf club.’”

This isn’t the first time Homa has seen the depths of his game. In 2017, he missed 15 of 17 cuts and lost his Tour card. He regained it, though, and broke through for his maiden win at the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship. 

That has prepared him for the road back to glory. 

“I know that I am quite tough when it comes to this stuff,” the six-time Tour winner said. “I’ve gone through this much worse before where the results weren’t coming.”

His scorecard might not indicate that Homa is on an upward trajectory, but he feels everything coming together—even if others find that surprising to hear. 

And that’s a mindset he and the most recent Super Bowl MVP share. 

“I heard that great Jalen Hurts quote where he said, ‘I’ve had purpose long before anybody had an opinion about it,’” Homa said. “It stuck with me. I don’t know how I never heard that, but like two days ago I did and it just made me realize like however the score is looking to those like outward, like last week would never make sense to anybody unless you’re part of like my tiny little thing, you would never think that we made progress. It would look like another kind of red ‘X’ on the year. 

“I think that that’s going to be like a major stepping stone and something we’ll all look back on.”