Weekly Recap: Homa-Field Advantage

The Golf Channel announcers noted that Maverick McNealy didn't look up or even acknowledge the roar of the crowd when Max Homa sank yet another birdie on the 17th hole, one that moved him into sole possession of the lead ahead of McNealy.

But it had to have an effect on the 25-year-old at this most pressure-filled moment deep in the back nine on Sunday, because seconds later he hit his worst shot of the day. It led to a disastrous double bogey and cleared the way for Homa to capture the 2021-22 season-opening Fortinet Championship for his third career title.

Standing in the tee box of the short par-4 17th, well within earshot of the green that Homa had just vacated, the sweet-swinging McNealy stunningly pushed an iron shot into a tree and it traveled only 166 yards.

The swing was "totally different than anything we've seen so far today," Trevor Immelman said of McNealy, adding that he had left the face way open.

McNealy had been leading for much of the weekend and looked in control of his game. The collapse showed just how hard it is to close out a win on the PGA Tour. The fact he eagled the par-5 18th to end up one stroke short of Homa only reinforced it.

On the other side of the equation was Homa, who is showing he quite clearly knows how to be a closer on Tour. He came from far back on the weekend with twin 65s, and culminated things by playing the final seven holes in 5-under to overtake McNealy.

It was his second win in 2021, after the Genesis International, and in that one he also bypassed a younger player looking for his maiden win: Sam Burns. Burns went on to win the Valspar just 2 and a half months later, so there's plenty of hope for McNealy.

Homa, who was born in southern California and attended college at UC Berkeley, was asked if he took anything from his Riviera win into Sunday at Silverado. "Yeah, I really learned it's a marathon. Those Sundays are long, a lot of things happen."

It sounds so simple, and obvious, but that is something you cannot fully comprehend before experiencing it.

Homa is a difficult player to gauge, especially for someone with three wins in the past three years. Soon after winning Riviera, he missed the cut at THE PLAYERS, then at the Masters, then at the PGA and then at the U.S. Open. He had a horrible second half of the season and didn't record a top-20 after the Memorial in June.

Homa said after his win on Sunday that missing the TOUR Championship, and then not being considered for the Ryder Cup team motivated him to practice really hard the past two weeks.

Perhaps equally as important as learning how to win, Tour players have to learn consistency, to be in the mix week in and week out. That is something that Homa clearly has not mastered yet.

Homa will move to 31st in the world, a career-best position. But he's still not considered among the top guys, not a threat to contend in a major. Heck, he's not even as good as Burns, who has strung together far more good tournaments than Homa and has cracked the top 25 of the OWGR.

That is Homa's next task on Tour, and he knows it.

"I've always said winning is very fickle," he said in his post-victory news conference. "I don't think that it means you're necessarily the best golfer. Obviously it helps, but you look at someone like Tony Finau, who is clearly a world beater and I think he's won two times. So winning is random, but you just have to keep putting yourself in the position to accomplish that goal."

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Maverick McNealy
McNealy matched his career-best with a solo runner-up and will move into the top-100 in the world rankings for the first time. But that won't make what happened on 17 sting any less. Still, we see a young player getting better and learning what it takes to win. This was his second solo runner-up on Tour, after coming within two strokes of Daniel Berger at Pebble Beach earlier this year. These close calls, full of heartache, will serve him well. McNealy now has made nine straight cuts, and six of them have been top-25s. A big 2021-22 season could be underway.

Mito Pereira
The Korn Ferry Tour star began his first full season on the PGA Tour with a solo third, presaging what could be a great season. This was his fourth top-6 since gaining a battlefield promotion over the summer, including the Olympics. Pereira could turn out to be this season's Will Zalatoris -- but with the advantage of having a Tour card.

Marc Leishman
Leishman has not had a good year – really, it goes back to the start of the pandemic – and he had fallen out of the top-40 in the world. But he's had a few isolated, great weeks to prevent even a further fall, and this may turn out only to be another, rather than the start of some sustained good play. Leishman tied for fourth, giving him four top-5s in 2021. Sounds great, right? But he's had nothing else even in the top-15 in 20 starts. This has made it very difficult to predict when the good Leishman will surface.

Talor Gooch
Gooch tied for fourth, a great start to the season. But it was only his second top-10 in all of 2021 – the other was at THE PLAYERS – so we'll need to see more before thinking this is a young player turning the corner. Here's something to put in your back pocket for mid-November: Gooch has finished in the top-5 in the past two Houston Opens.

Patrick Rodgers
Rodgers disappointingly had to head to the Korn Ferry playoffs last month to keep his card – and he succeeded. So to start off this season with a tie for sixth is enormous for him. It's his best result in a main PGA Tour event (not alternate field) in almost three years, since he was runner-up at the 2018 RSM.

John Augenstein
Augenstein was a star amateur who turned pro at the beginning of this year to great fanfare – and he did nothing. He missed seven straight cuts to start his pro career. So this tie for sixth is an enormous step forward for someone ranked outside the top-700 in the world entering the week. Augenstein actually had made his two prior cuts coming in – at the Charles Schwab back in May and the Wyndham last month – but this is really next-level stuff for him. And the top-10 will get him into the Sanderson Farms in two weeks.

Jim Knous
Knous (kuh-NOUSE, rhymes with mouse) was the sentimental favorite as the co-54-hole leader, only to be done in with a soul-crushing triple on 14. He wound up tied for 11th in his second-to-last start on a major medical extension out of the Reshuffle category. Knous is 31 years old and has played in only 25 Tour events. The $150,000 he won on Sunday is almost 25 percent of his career Tour earnings. We don't know when his next start will come, but Knous needs 91 points to secure a full PGA Tour card (three-way tie for sixth, the Tour said) but only 3.5 points for conditional PGA/full Korn Ferry status. It would be a nice touch for him to get a Sanderson Farms sponsor invite in two weeks if he doesn't otherwise gain entry.

Phil Mickelson
Mickelson began the final round surprisingly sitting inside the top-10 but tumbled far down the leaderboard with a 3-over 75. He's now off to the Ryder Cup, with his rightful place as an assistant captain reinforced by his disappointing result at the Fortinet -- a tie for 36th.

Jon Rahm
Rahm rarely misses a cut, but even missing this one would not ordinarily spark much concern. But on the eve of the Ryder Cup, after he withdrew from the Wednesday pro-am citing an illness, it's a different animal altogether. Rahm did not seem at any disadvantage during his two rounds, other than not playing well. This will require more monitoring in the days leading up to the start of the Ryder Cup on Friday.

Kevin Na
Na would've liked nothing better to really stick to Steve Stricker by showing he made the wrong choice in snubbing Na for the Ryder Cup team. Maybe Na was playing with too much emotion, but he did the exact opposite, missing the cut by a wide margin. It's unlikely to have a long-term effect, but in interviews Na has been quite angry over being bypassed. He has to channel those emotions better than he did this past week.

Taylor Moore
There's nothing noteworthy about most Korn Ferry grads missing the cut in the first PGA Tour event of the new season. Except Moore was one our RotoWire sleeper picks present in the 2021-22 Draft Kit. Specifically, my sleeper pick. And he did not look good with a 74-73 trunk-slam.

Stephan Jaeger
Jaeger emerged from the Korn Ferry season at the very top of the priority list among the 50 KF grads. He has a good deal of PGA Tour experience, albeit without much success. He still doesn't have any, missing the cut at Silverado.

Lucas Herbert and Aaron Rai
These two guys were noteworthy Korn Ferry grads because they are Europeans of some renown, both ranked in the top-100 in the world. In fact, Herbert has been in the top-50. But Herbert, an Australian, and Rai, an Englishman, both missed the cut in their debuts as PGA Tour members. Herbert entered the week ranked 51st in the OWGR, and Rai was 98th. The Korn Ferry Tour is not the same as the PGA Tour and the European Tour is not the same as the PGA Tour. We'll be monitoring these two guys closely throughout the rest of the fall portion of the schedule.