If you are an avid golf fan like myself you have surely heard of Max Homa. As of this article he has just finished 2nd at the Genesis Open after an exciting final round battle with Jon Rahm. In January, he won the Farmers Insurance Open by 2 strokes. He is on the edge of possibly being the top golfer in the world.
I don’t know him personally and he hasn’t helped me directly. I just really like to watch him play. Here are some of the things I have learned from watching him play that have helped my game.
Main item for me – Tempo, tempo, tempo
When I watch Max play the main thing that jumps out for me is his tempo. Every golfer has a different swing, some guys look like they have to swing out of their shorts every time and others look like they are just taking a nice calm swing. That to me is Max Homa’s swing.
He never looks like its rushed or hurried and looks very smooth. I know I sometimes pull my back swing to fast or try to kill the ball when I swing. Both of these are bad and usually cause me any number of bad results. I find that if I take back a nice slow back swing and try to hit the ball hard without swinging too fast the best results for me usually occur.
So any time I get too “fast” with my swing I try to think about what Max’s swing looks like and then visualize in my head my swing looking like that too. Does mine look like that? I don’t know, I haven’t filmed my swing lately to see but its something I will need to do in the future.
His demeanor on the course
Once again watching Max on TV, I am always impressed with how calm, cool and collected he looks. You can’t really tell if he just hit a great shot or finished a hole with a bogie. He looks focused and pretty much the same emotions the entire round.
So when I play and I make a mistake I try not to let it bother me. I’ve had many rounds that I was playing well, hit a bad shot or two and really let it get in my head to where the rest of the round turned into a shit show. As an amateur that is going to happen almost every round and will need to be addressed. Just try to forget the last shot and only think about the next.
Here I don’t really know what Max is thinking on the course, I can only imagine. But what I imagine is him just moving on and not letting the last shot effect the next.
And yes, he has on occasion lost his temper and pounded a club into the ground after a bad shot. He is human after all. If you’ve played golf and gotten frustrated I would bet you have too.
Continue to improve
There was a time back in 2010-2019 that Max was missing a lot of cuts and not playing well. But he continued to work hard and improve his game. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of golfers and people in all walks of life. I personally just like to focus on one person I would like to emulate and this another great characteristic of Max to follow.
Its hard for armatures to spend a lot of time improving our games but if its only one aspect that you can work on to get a little better on. Its one more thing you are getting better on.
Pick on thing you want to improve and focus on that, you will be amazed how much it can help.
Believe in yourself
One other thing I saw Max say about himself. Early in his career he wasn’t sure, in his mind, if he belonged with the greatest golfers in the world. I think once he did believe and realized he is one of the best, he finally broke through and won that first tournament.
Believe you can play well and it will help you play well. Once again we are not professional golfers and what works for the pro’s is not’t necessarily going to work for us. But if you go out expecting to play like shit you will. Believe that day is going to be one of your best days of golf, and it just might be.
Conclusion
I hoped giving a little incite into what I try to think about when I play golf might help or inspire others. There are lots of great people, golfers or not, that you can try to emulate to improve your game whether its golf or something else.
For me it was watching Max Homa and finding a few things I like about his game that I would like to emulate to try to improve my game.
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