Max Homa wins the Wild Fortinet Championship

NAPA, California – After a long, slow drudgery in the rain, everything changed in an instant.

Max Homa threw in from 33 feet, Danny Willett made a three putt from 3 1/2 and it was over. Homa successfully defended his Fortinet Championship title with a breathtaking birdie bogey change on the par 5 finish hole at Silverado Resort & Spa.

“That was crazy,” he said after a ’68 finals that earned his fifth PGA TOUR win by a shot over Willett and three shots over rookie Taylor Montgomery (64). “I still don’t know exactly what happened. It was one of those weekends you just had to hang out.”

Homa has now won three times in just over a year and will compete this week in Quail Hollow Club’s Presidents Cup as arguably the fastest rising player on the US team.

His wife Lacey, who is expecting the couple’s first child, a boy, in early November, followed the action despite the weather. Although this was the fifth win for Homa and Caddy Joe Greiner, it was the first for Greiner’s fiancé Mayla. All were planning to board a private jet that would arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina, early Tuesday morning after dark.

For most of Sunday afternoon in the damp Silverado, it looked like Homa would finish second. He had hit his second shot into the front bunker on 18 when Willett hit his approach hard. It looked like Willett, who finished third in the 2015 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, would have another indelible memory of playing great in Northern California.

Then everything changed.

“That was probably the most unexpected finish,” said Greiner. “As a caddy, you always expect the unexpected, but when Danny hit his approach to within three or four feet, I thought our chances of making the bunker shot were pretty slim. I was just telling (Homa) to hit it on the green and make the putt so he has to at least make it to win.

Willett, 34, was nearing his first TOUR title since the 2016 Masters. When his opponent’s third shot from the bunker failed to reach the green, the tournament was over.

“The sand was a bit wet,” Greiner said, “and he didn’t have much greenery to work with. He did his best to twist it as much as possible and only got a little under.

Said Homa, “I kind of had to assume he was going to make it, and I kind of went for the hero bunker shot and didn’t quite catch it.” Regardless, he chimed in from 33 feet and almost took Greiner with a high-five Hand off when the fans erupted.

Willett smiled, then dissolved.

“I obviously hit it way too hard,” he said of his birdie attempt, which flew wide of the hole and gave him a longer putt for par of 4ft, 8″. “And on the way back…I found it straighter. Again, yes, just ended up slacking off and missing on the left.

“Yeah, a disappointing finish,” he continued, “but you know, as first of the season, like I said, to be in the running, things are in a good place. Yes, we will live to fight another day.”

Justin Lower (73, T4) took a one-shot lead on Sunday, but it came down to Homa and Willett in the back nine. Homa would have been the favorite had he had his best season of his career with back-to-back wins and first time promotion to the TOUR Championship where he tied for 5th.

But while he was briefly even with birdies on 9, 10 and 11, he never led to 18.

Tee times were brought forward due to the forecast and rain brought relief to drought-stricken Northern California. It also brought Homa and Willett to the fore. Homa won the Wells Fargo Championship in May at the rain-stricken TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Willett smiled at the mention of inclement weather. He had a three-shot lead through eight, but made a three-putt bogey on the ninth when Lower and Homa each birdied to reduce the lead to one.

Homa and Willett pulled away with more birdies and Lower went off pace.

One shot down and five, four, three, two, one hole, Homa told himself that the moment he tried to force the problem would be the moment he would put himself out of contention. His trainer Mark Blackburn preached patience all week. Greiner preached patience all day long. And it paid off, albeit in ways no one could have expected.

After winning the Fortinet in 2021, Homa admitted that he sometimes struggled with confidence. However, when he realized that he was the pre-tournament favorite that year, he was fine with it.

“Oddly enough, it felt OK,” he said. “It didn’t feel like too much pressure.”

Before they all drove to the airport, Greiner added: “It’s part of me and Mark’s agreement to tell him how good he is and the day he believes it, he might not need us at all. ”