2022 Shriners Children’s Open: Top 10 power rankings at TPC Summerlin
It’s a good time to be Max Homa. The soon-to-be father just defended his title at the Fortinet Championship for his fifth career PGA Tour victory. Homa parlayed that excellent form into a 4-0-0 record as a rookie to guide the United States to another Presidents Cup victory.
He was up to a career-best 16th in the Official World Golf Rankings before dropping a spot after being idle last week. The former Cal Golden Bear has steadily been climbing the charts over the past few years after a rocky start to his pro career.
Homa’s already off to a good start in the FedEx Cup race after finishing a career-best fifth last season.
In the 2021-22 PGA Tour campaign, the 31-year-old turned from a bit of a streaky player to a very consistent one. Homa missed just three cuts and never two in a row. He won the Fortinet and Wells Fargo Championship and had his best year at the majors with three made cuts highlighted by T-13th at the PGA Championship.
Getting in the mix at a major is the next step for Homa. But we’ll have to wait six months for that.
In the meantime, the Californian finds himself at the Shriners Children’s Open for the fifth time. It’s been tough sledding for ol’ Max at TPC Summerlin. He’s 0-for-4 making the cut since debuting in 2014 with rounds of 74-71 in his last appearance in 2020.
Perhaps he was getting after it a little too much on the Strip as a young player. Who am I to point fingers?
More likely the cause for his poor results here are that three of them came before he was consistently keeping his PGA Tour card. In 2020, he was humming along nicely before the pandemic break and was unable to find consistent form when play resumed until 2021.
Per Golf News Net, Homa’s strokes gained putting stats per round are worse on Bentgrass (-.105) than on any other common surface.
Fortunately, good iron play is still rewarded this week. Homa was 36th in SG per round approach (.384) and was 24th in SG tee to green (.975).
I’m not convinced he’ll win this week given the handful of other big names in the field, but I feel confident that Homa will end his Las Vegas drought and record at least three rounds in the 60s.