Augusta, GA – Max Homa stepped off the hallowed grounds of Augusta National in April 2024 as a man in full bloom. Fresh off a career-best T3 finish at the Masters, the Californian had cemented his status as a top-10 player in the world rankings.
Homa’s game was firing on all cylinders: a silky swing, a knack for clutch putting, and a charisma that made him a fan favorite.
At 33, Homa was no longer the journeyman who once toiled on mini-tours; he was a six-time PGA Tour winner, a Ryder Cup standout, and a legitimate threat to claim his first major. The Masters that year seemed like a springboard, with his final-round 70 showcasing the poise of a champion-in-waiting.
A year later, as the tall pines frame Augusta in April 2025, Homa returns not as a conquering hero but as an enigma amid a career-threatening slump. His world ranking has tumbled to No. 81, a freefall that mirrors a season of frustration and faded promise – he enters amid a streak of five consecutive missed-cuts. The swagger and smirk that once defined him has been replaced by furrowed brows and post-round sighs.
What happened to the man who lit up leaderboards and social media with equal flair?
The unraveling began shortly after that Masters high. Homa’s spring of 2024 held promise — a T8 at the Wells Fargo Championship kept him in the conversation — but cracks soon appeared.
The U.S. Open brought a missed cut, his first in a major since 2022, and the Open Championship offered little relief with a T43 finish that felt pedestrian for a player of his pedigree.
By the time the FedEx Cup Playoffs arrived, Homa’s season was spiraling: a dead-last (solo 70th) finish the St. Jude Championship and a T33 at the BMW Championship saw him miss the Tour Championship for the first time in three years.
The stats paint a stark picture. For the 2023 season, Homa ranked 26th in Strokes Gained: Approach and 6th in Strokes Gained: Putting, cornerstones of his T3 Masters run. As he arrives at Augusta in 2025, those numbers have cratered — he now sits 185th in SG: Approach and 145th in SG: Putting. His driver, always a wild card, grew erratic (167th Total Driving), leaving him scrambling more often than attacking.
The result? Not a single top-10 finish after May 2024, a far cry from the seven he’d racked up, including a win in South Africa, the prior year.
Homa’s struggles haven’t been purely mechanical. Known for his self-deprecating humor and candid X posts, he’s been open about the mental grind.
“Golf’s humbling,” he tweeted after a missed cut at The Open Championship in July 2024, where he shot a second-round 77. “One day you’re on top, the next you’re wondering where it went.”
The weight of expectation — his own and others’ — seemed to press harder as the year wore on. A vocal supporter of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Homa once thrived under pressure, but 2024 saw him falter in big moments, like a late collapse at the Genesis Invitational, where he faded to T-16 on home turf.
Off-course distractions may have played a role. Homa welcomed his first child in late 2024, a joyful milestone that he admitted shifted his focus at times.
“Sleep’s optional now,” he quipped during a presser, but the adjustment to fatherhood coincided with his steepest decline. Pair that with a nagging wrist injury at 34 that flared up midseason, and the pieces of his slump begin to align.
Yet, Augusta offers a glimmer of redemption. Homa’s T3 in 2024 wasn’t a fluke — his iron play and short game have historically suited the course’s demands. At 34, he’s still in his prime, and his resilience is well-documented: he clawed his way from the Korn Ferry Tour to stardom, after all.
“I’ve got scars from worse than this,” he said this week, flashing that familiar grin. “It’s still in there somewhere.”
Whether Homa can rediscover that spark amid Augusta’s tall pines remains uncertain, but for now, his fall from top-10 stardom to a cut-line battler is a testament to golf’s fickle nature — even for a fan favorite like Max.
