Despite boost from Max Homa's return, Jupiter Links falls again in TGL action
Despite boost from Max Homa's return, Jupiter Links falls again in TGL action
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Tiger Woods makes TGL debut, hits first tee shot with Jupiter Links GC
Golf legend Tiger Woods and his team Jupiter Links GC competed in their debut match at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.
Max Homa, once ranked 8th in the world, has struggled recently, with only one top-20 finish in his last 17 starts.
Homa returned to TGL after a knee injury, hoping to spark his game, but his team, Jupiter Links, lost to the undefeated Bay Club.
Despite the loss, Homa found some positives in his performance, saying he made some good swings and enjoyed competing.
Homa's main goal for the rest of the year is to regain his winning form and prove his dedication to the sport.
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – The last time Max Homa came to Palm Beach County, he was the eighth-ranked player in the world and had 11 top-20 finishes in his last 13 starts.
Mad Max was the King of social media with his witty responses and unique sense of humor, not to mention his status as one of the world's best golfers.
His success and popularity was why he was chosen to play in The Match at The Park alongside Rory McIlroy, Lexi Thompson and Rose Zhang in a prime-time contest on TNT.
That was a year ago Thursday, but it likely seems like a lifetime ago for Homa. Even when he finished third in the Masters six weeks later, his game was about to bottom out.
The Homa who showed up Tuesday night at SoFi Center for the TGL's Jupiter Links Golf's match against The Bay Golf Club still had his beard and shaggy hair falling out of the back of his hat, but his game is MIA. And we don't mean in Miami.
Homa has had one top-20 finish in his last 17 starts, three missed cuts, a coaching change and has fallen to No. 70 in the world rankings. The last of his six PGA Tour wins came more than two years ago, at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open.
'Golf doesn't like me at the moment,' Homa said two weeks ago. 'I played well at Augusta and thought 'OK, I kind of got it' and I've really never hit the ball well since then.'
Welcome to our world.
Max Homa missed last two TGL matches with a knee injury
Homa was hoping his return to TGL, after missing Jupiter Links' last two matches with a knee injury, would resuscitate his game. Jupiter Links needed a lift, with no Tiger Woods and four teams ahead of them in the six-team standings. No such luck as the Bay Club (4-0-0) remained undefeated with a 6-3 win to place Jupiter Links' playoff hopes in dire straits.
Who would have thought the teams headed by Woods and Rory McIlroy, the driving forces behind TGL, would both miss the postseason? It's more than likely.
Homa gave his team an opportunity early when he hit his tee shot on the par-3 third hole to 9 feet, but Tom Kim missed the putt and Jupiter Links (1-3-0) fell behind 1-0 after Min Woo Lee's birdie.
'It's kind of hard to watch on TV,' Homa said on ESPN's telecast. 'It's good to be back with my buds.'
It got even more difficult when Lee, all 6-foot and 165 pounds, set a TGL record with ball speed of 192 mph on the fourth hole. Lee would be right at home on I-95.
The beauty of TGL, especially in alternate shot, is you're one swing away from a smile. Sure enough, after Kevin Kisner, shanked his shot on the fifth hole, Homa hit a delicate chip 44 yards to 5 feet, leading to Kim's birdie to tie the match at 1-all.
After Lee's chip-in on the sixth hole – yes, he called Dr. Chipinski, putting his index finger and pinky to his ear – gave the Bay a 2-1 lead, Homa made a clutch 4-foot par putt to keep Jupiter Links from falling behind 4-1. The score seemed headed to that number on No. 8 until Lee's chip had a violent lip-out.
Dr. Chipinski was unavailable.
It didn't matter, however, when Lowery made a 6-foot eagle putt on the ninth hole, thanks to Lee's brilliant shot from the rough and Wyndham Clark's call to throw the hammer twice. It was 5-1, the Bay Club, headed to singles.
Homa had a chance to earn a point, but he missed a 15-foot birdie on No. 12. That ended Jupiter Links' hopes of winning, but his season won't be measured by what happened on a Tuesday night in late February. Homa has to continue to rebuild his game where it counts – on the golf course.
'If I had played well tonight, it wasn't like I was going to go home and celebrate,' Homa said. 'And if I played poorly, I wasn't going to go home and mope. I felt like I made some good swings tonight. It was just fun to go out there and compete.'
Asked what he wants to accomplish the rest of the year, his answer was simple.
'I want to win,' he said. 'I work hard enough to win. I care about being great. And I'd like to show that.'
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And, you know, he didn't really have an answer to that.' At the Masters this year, DeChambeau hit 925 balls on the practice range over six days, far more than anyone else. These marathon range sessions have become a key part of his legend, but they're certainly not new. Asked recently about the origins of his work ethic, DeChambeau recalled something he read in a Ben Hogan book when he was around 13, a new golfer with more ambition than talent: 'A day that you aren't practicing is another day that somebody else is getting better than you.' 'I quickly started to realize I have to work harder and harder and harder, and it got to this place where it was eight hours a day of practice on Saturdays, hitting golf balls,' he said. 'There were Saturdays where I'd count golf ball buckets and see if I could hit over 1,000 balls in a day.' He often would. He would empty the last bucket and look down at his hands, seeing torn skin and dried blood. 'It just became a bit of an obsession of 'How do I get better than others?'' he said. '… I definitely lost a lot of my childhood practicing golf, but I wouldn't change it for the world.' The preoccupation was mixed with a yearning to please and a drive to experiment. Schy and DeChambeau worked on a single-plane swing — where the club head stays on a fluid path from backswing to impact. They adopted irons with single-length shafts and paired them with large grips. Later Schy introduced DeChambeau to his beloved Krank driver. 'He seeks validation,' Schy said. 'He wants to win and to be the best. But it has to be different. He has to able to say: 'Nobody's doing this. I'm the only one.' That's always, always been his quest.' DeChambeau often referred to Schy as a second father, but the two had a falling-out shortly after the golfer won the U.S. Open last June at Pinehurst. Schy felt he wasn't properly recognized and went public saying DeChambeau wasn't holding up his end of a deal to fund a junior tour in California named after DeChambeau's late father, Jon. DeChambeau's camp denied this, and his agent said Schy tried to extort $2 million from the golfer after the U.S. Open, a charge Schy denies. 'It's an unfortunate situation,' DeChambeau said at last year's British Open. 'I've loved that man for all of my life.' Schy said he's still rooting for DeChambeau and hopes the two can reconcile. 'I think I've learned over the years that this is all a never-ending journey,' Schy said, 'and the goal is to hopefully try to keep improving — not only as a golfer but my hope would be that he'd improve as a person.' Said DeChambeau: 'Mike has been an inspiration and incredible for me growing up as a kid to just practice and do what I needed to do to get better. He may not have had all the answers, but he led me toward the right answers, and I learned that work ethic was the most important thing.' A decade ago, DeChambeau had just won an NCAA championship and was on the verge of winning the U.S. Amateur. He was 21 and about to become just the fifth player to win both titles in the same year, a list that includes Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson and Woods. A reporter asked, 'What do you view as your role in golf moving forward?' Even then, audacity was among the biggest tools in DeChambeau's bag. He responded, 'I hope that I can honestly revolutionize the game of golf in a unique way — in a way that tells everybody, 'Do it your own way.'' In retrospect, he was signaling to the golf world just what kind of disrupter he would become. He breaks down courses, equipment and his own mechanics unlike anyone else, constantly searching for an edge. He once explained that when he was younger, he practiced writing cursive backward and left-handed — 'to help my fine motor skills with my hands, create more sensitivity and increase my brainpower.' Said Parra, the SMU coach: 'He strives for greatness in a way that he believes is not the norm. Bryson's looking for his own perfection.' The boldness, the idiosyncrasies, the detailed analysis — it all rubbed many people the wrong way. DeChambeau heard the critics, and he couldn't always tune them out. 'I think as time has gone on, I think you realize that we're all human and it's okay if somebody has a perspective,' he said. 'And you just try to show them through your actions, not what you say, but through your actions of what you're doing for this great game of golf. That's all I focus on now.' DeChambeau has changed equipment, and he has changed tours. He has changed the people around him, and he has changed his body, bulking up to an almost comical degree, then slimming back down. Meantime, the sport around him shifted in a way that accelerated his rise. Especially among young people, DeChambeau might be the most recognizable and influential person in the sport. Far more fans watch him swing a golf club in his lighthearted YouTube videos than during his live competitions on LIV Golf. 'I've always seen this side of him,' Mickelson said, 'this playful fun side, intelligent side, interesting side of him. … Now everybody gets to see it because he's able to showcase that and not have who he is be filtered by a middle person.' While his YouTube channel offers a direct connection to fans — he has far more followers than the PGA Tour, LIV Golf or any other pro — he also finds other ways to break through. After he won the U.S. Open last year, saving par with a miraculous 54-yard bunker shot on the final hole to douse Rory McIlroy's hopes, DeChambeau paraded around Pinehurst until after midnight, sharing the trophy with fans, smiling for every camera, even returning to the 18th hole to talk through the memorable shot with Golf Channel's Johnson Wagner. It wasn't image rehabilitation as much it was a reputational eruption. 'He's the game's ultimate marketer right now,' NBC analyst Dan Hicks said. 'I think he's been incredibly smart with his transformation. … I think he's the same guy, but he's just used the showmanship routine to really take his stardom to a whole new level.' DeChambeau finished in the top five at this year's Masters and PGA Championship. He won a LIV event in South Korea last month, and his game is well-suited for Oakmont. Still, he turned to a new set of irons this week, in search of an edge. And he hopes to soon debut a new golf ball after further testing. 'But I'm excited to keep researching and trying and experimenting and optimizing,' he said. 'My goal right now is just to optimize myself to another level, and if I can't, so be it.' He'll probably always be known for his epic range sessions, but DeChambeau said he doesn't hit nearly as many balls as he used to because he has never felt more comfortable with his equipment and his mechanics. As his manager, Connor Olson, pointed out, DeChambeau is now transferring that energy elsewhere, exploring investments, brainstorming YouTube ideas, discussing partnerships for both himself and the Crushers, the LIV team he captains. 'A lot more time grinding on business ventures these days, I'd say,' Olson said. Now that he has celebrity and a devoted following, DeChambeau is figuring out what to do with his platform, a subject he has discussed with Trump. 'What he does to build his brand and content, the way his brain works, how he thinks through ideas, the people he surrounds himself with — it's all extra,' said Scott O'Neil, the CEO of LIV. 'The way he engages partners and sponsors, the president — this guy is a once-in-a-lifetime type of talent, on the course and off.' That partnership will soon be put to a test. DeChambeau's contract with LIV expires next year. He's hoping to negotiate a new deal by the end of this year, saying, 'I know my worth.' 'They see the value in me. I see the value in what they can provide,' he said. 'And I believe we'll come to some sort of resolution on that. Super excited for the future. I think that LIV is not going anywhere.' While some major champions jumped ship and pocketed LIV's money only to see their games suffer, DeChambeau attributes his success and his increasing popularity to his decision to leave the PGA Tour in June 2022. The lighter competition schedule gave him more free time, and he has used that time to test himself in new ways. 'YouTube has massively helped, I can tell you that,' he said, 'being able to just release the emotions in the way that I know I can. When I was a kid, I was super emotional, obviously, but I got frustrated on the golf course, I got really excited on the golf course.' 'Then when I got on tour, it was like everybody [said]: 'Hey, no, come on, just be in control. Control yourself. Control yourself.' There were times where I got frustrated but also times where I realized: 'Hey, no, I should be expressing my emotions, because that's me. I don't want to be someone that I'm not.'' Even if he captures another major title this weekend, DeChambeau is unlikely to be content. He wants to affect the entire sport, and then do it again and again. 'I think Bryson, in his mind, would really like to do some great things for the game,' Parra said. 'Obviously, he does it different than everyone else. But you do see a lot of guys that have made a lot of money and get a little complacent. They're okay with finishing 20 to 50th. That's not Bryson. Bryson is not going to stop.'
