Wells Fargo Championship: Max Homa can secure his future with Sunday win

The Wells Fargo Championship has a three-way tie for the lead heading into Sunday’s final round. While every PGA TOUR victory is important, for Max Homa, it would be the realization of worlds of potential – and years of persistence.

This week’s Wells Fargo Championship has a ton of star power near the top of the leaderboard through three rounds at Quail Hollow. The top ten includes the likes of Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia and Rickie Fowler – all household names. But one of the guys with the “T-1” designation next to his name is one you should know now, if you don’t already. That would be Max Homa.

A little background, in case you’re unfamiliar. Homa, 28, played his college golf at Cal, where he was an All-American as a senior. He won the 2013 Division I national championship, earned a spot in the U.S. Open at Merion, and compiled a 2-1 record for Team USA in that season’s Walker Cup, alongside several future Tour players including Michael Kim, Patrick Rodgers, Jordan Niebrugge and Justin Thomas. Even in that crew, Homa looked like as close to a surefire star as you could have picked.

But golf is a funny game, and sometimes the thing you least expected materializes. Homa graduated from the Web.com Tour with a victory in 2014, earning his PGA TOUR membership for 2015. However, he missed more cuts (15) than he made (12) in his rookie year, and he found himself working for his card again in 2016. Another year on the Web.com led to another victory, and Homa returned to the Tour for another shot in 2017.

Turns out, golf didn’t become an easier sport in that stretch. If anything, it got harder for Homa, who in his efforts to step his game up a notch wound up taking multiple steps back. His 2017 season was was one that could send even the most dedicated pro into a permanent tailspin, missing 15 of 17 cuts and earning just $18,008 for the year.

Homa wasn’t going to let that bad year be the end of his dream. On Friday at the Wells Fargo Championship, he talked about the meaning of a tattoo on his right arm, which is one simple word: Relentless.

"“It’s always been my favorite word,” he said. “There’s a great book, one of the basketball trainers, the book’s called ‘Relentless.’ It’s always been my favorite word in college. Just kind of being tougher than everybody, not giving up.“When I played very, very bad two years ago, I just kept thinking about that word. I knew I was going to be back out here and I was going to make myself get back out here, and that’s when my attitude changed. You’ve kind of got to love yourself a little bit more.”"

And back out here he most certainly is. Homa has already made seven cuts in 15 starts, earning more than $350,000. If he can pull off the win tomorrow, he’ll earn just over $1.4 million, almost half a million more than his total career to date. Not a bad way to turn a career path around, if you ask me.

There’s plenty of firepower standing between Homa and his first PGA TOUR win at the Wells Fargo Championship, but sometimes it’s just a guy’s week out there. Homa has made just four bogeys all week, tied for third in the field. He’s 15th in strokes gained off-the-tee (his biggest weakness in ’17), 13th on approach, and sixth on the greens. He’s known for a long time that he’s got what it takes to compete at the highest level, and his confidence should be sky high.

That’s what being relentless can do for a player. Max Homa could make the jump from underground favorite (he’s a fantastic Twitter follow, seriously) to TOUR winner in less than 24 hours. And once he makes that jump, he’ll have the trials of years past to look back on that brought him to this pivotal moment.