Max Homa Gets Emotional Discussing His 'Toxic' Relationship With Golf As Serious Struggles Continue

Max Homa played in the penultimate group in the final round of the 2024 Masters less than a year ago. He ultimately finished in a tie for third and woke up that next morning as the No. 9 player in the world. 

Fast-forward to this Sunday at The Players, another where Homa is watching the final round instead of playing in it after a missed cut, and the 34-year-old is set to fall outside of the Top 70 in the world for the first time since early 2021.

Homa earned one more Top 10 finish after his strong showing at Augusta National a year ago, but to say things have gone poorly over the last 10 months or so would be an understatement. In his seven starts on Tour in 2025, he's played the weekend just twice, with each of those events not having a cut line. 

Homa shot 79-71 at TPC Sawgrass to miss the cut by seven shots at The Players this week, and after what was his fourth consecutive early trunk-slamming session, he spoke candidly about the state of his game giving the world a glimpse at where he is mentally.

"I know how hard I work; I know how much I care," Homa said. "So it just feels more just shi--y for myself, like internally. I know people probably love this and some people probably hate it for me, but people like to laugh when people aren’t doing well. I would laugh at that, because I just don’t know what more I could be doing at the moment.

It’s actually easier to deal with what I think people might think because it seems so silly because they’re not sitting on the range with me for X amount of hours."

According to the PGA Tour, Homa delivered his remarks while "close to tears." 

Max Homa is not having fun playing golf at the moment and will be ranked outside the Top 70 in the world. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

"It's hard to care this much about something and just not get anything out of it," Homa continued. "It’s like you're in a very toxic relationship. I might be the toxic one, but it’s still toxic."

Homa calling his relationship with golf "toxic" is remarkable. This is a player who has won six times on the PGA Tour, represented his country in both the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, and was a Top 10 player on planet Earth less than 365 days ago.

Golf, however, is a nasty, unforgivable, and very fickle game.

Amid his struggles on the course to close out the 2024 season, Homa decided to embrace change in just about every way imaginable. Not only is he working on a new swing and new feels, he also changed equipment and apparel sponsors to begin the new year.

Homa will play in the Masters next month with his T-3 finish a year ago making him exempt this time around, but as things stand, he's not exempt into the U.S. Open or Open Championship later this year.