Max Homa’s painful day includes confusing lessons

Max Homa shook hands with his caddy, handed over his putter and doubled over in pain after playing the ninth hole at Black Desert Resort on Friday.

It was the end of a confusing Friday at the Bank of Utah Championship — a painful, difficult, and ultimately successful Friday that Homa expected to be his last of the year.

“I’m not sure, but I have a pretty big bone spur on the top of my ankle. I’ve had it for a while,” Homa said after limping out of the second round. He had been planning to remove it during the golf offseason. But his ankle seems particularly hungry heading into the offseason. Homa was visibly uncomfortable for much of the second round.

“It almost never gets inflamed, but I think this spot is hard to walk on. Walking down a hill on No. 12, I didn’t seem to feel anything, but as we walked down the fairway on No. 12, I could feel it swelling. And then when we finished on No. 12, it got very, very soft,” he said. “Then I don’t know, it’s just not a walkable golf course. It’s really hard going uphill because I can’t bend it, so it sucks.”

But there’s a canyon between Houma Felt and what about him shooting. By the end of the day, he still had no blemishes on his scorecard, but he had five birdies, three of which came in the final six holes when he was in the top 10.

Beware of injured golfers, they say. Homa knows why.

“In a way, it’s like yesterday I played so well but I just got in my own way too much,” he said, referring to Thursday’s 70 that included six birdies but also three bogeys and a double. “Honestly, being injured sometimes helps because I don’t remember thinking about my golf swing, I don’t remember thinking about too much. Just get it done. Bring it home,” Homa said.

“If I hit the ball poorly and the ball is still in play, am I going to be happy with that? So, yeah, I think you can learn a lot from that. Hopefully I can fix that. It’s just not fun to walk around with.”

To be clear, Homa is not interested in your sympathy. But he did recognize that, despite or because of the pain, he had made limited mistakes from which perhaps lessons could be learned.

“The passing ball was good. The straight ball was not great but it was controllable,” he said. “I don’t know. I keep thinking, my wife gave birth to our first son and had a horrible labor and she had really, really big surgery, and I couldn’t even complain about the ankle injury when I was walking. That really – she helped me go through a lot. She couldn’t look at me the same way. Yeah, it was okay. It was just more painful.”

Has he considered quitting? Homa admitted that the thought crossed his mind. But still…

“I mean, for now just because if things don’t get better, I can’t imagine myself doing this in another two days,” he said. “But, yeah, probably not. I just can’t. I don’t want to do that. I love being here. I really love how I feel about golfing. It’s my last tournament of the year and walking is annoying, so I can deal with that.”

If this is indeed Homa’s final event of 2025, it’s a fitting ending: depressing, but hopeful. He’s had several strong finishes in recent weeks — three top-20 finishes in his past six starts, including a tie for fifth at the John Deere Classic — but he’s never quite found his groove in a season that’s seen changes in coaches, caddies and clubs. Unlike some of his peers, he doesn’t need to step up this fall to keep his status through 2026; he still has several years of exempt status. still…

“Yeah, that’s not the case, but it’s nice to feel good about the game,” Homa said, asked why it was so important this week. “That’s definitely been a trend the past few months. Coming out here feeling confident in what I’m doing. You know, everything went well yesterday, just punting, so it was nice to come out today and play the way I know I can.”

He added that the bone spurs come from nowhere.

“I never felt it. I just had severe ankle dorsiflexion. It didn’t affect me at all,” he said. “It’s like the second time in a year and it’s never been in the championship.”

Overall, Homa had nothing but praise for the event venue (Black Desert Resort hosted the Tour for the second time) and the competition.

“This is a phenomenal golf course. The greens are great. I love how solid it has become,” he said. “I’m surprised I didn’t come here last year because this place is so cool.”

With the help of some KT tape and some Advil, he would spend another two days battling the frustrating pain in beautiful surroundings.

“It’s hard to say whether it helps,” he concluded. “The bird helped a little bit. Yeah, everything’s going to be okay. It’s not a big deal.”

“People are in a much worse situation.”