THE 150TH OPEN

July 14, 2022

Max Homa

Mixed Zone

MAX HOMA: Got to 14, wait on the tee for a while. And then they said we were going to hit up on them, and they let us drive. So we hit our drive. Then when we got up there, we waited 20 minutes for them to hit, which meant we had to wait another 20 after that for us to hit. It was very bizarre.

Q. Was it disruptive for the round for you?

MAX HOMA: Yeah. I felt like I needed to call my PT back and get him to stretch me back out. Yeah, it was -- I felt like everything was like choppy, and it wasn't easy to get into a rhythm, but that was like -- almost like a whole reset. Yeah, I'm hitting a ball out of the fescue all of a sudden. It's not like I can just tee it up. It was very weird.

Q. On the positive side, I guess you got some more time to talk to Tiger. How did it compare to what you expected?

MAX HOMA: Unbelievable. It was cool. I told Joe, if there was anybody else in my group, if it was probably just Matt, I would have been complaining all day, and I'm sure he would too. He would say that too.

It was the coolest frickin' day I've ever had on a golf course. He's the GOAT for a reason. He was very, very nice. It was a really fun day. It was a dream-come-true type day minus some of the golf. It really felt like fantasy.

Q. Did you learn anything from playing alongside him today? See anything different about what he does or anything like that? Give you any tips?

MAX HOMA: He does seem to do a really good job of staying within himself when he walks and how he moves. Yeah, you obviously have to lock in -- I think we see it on TV with them, but there's just so many frickin' people. It's cool -- I'm not sure if it feels cool to him anymore, but it's just cool to watch.

Matt and I were talking about how whenever Tiger is hitting off the tee, especially there's just so many phones and so many people's hands just in the air. They don't even know if they're getting a shot. It's just impressive he can do what he does and has done with all that attention.

Q. What about the turnaround now? It's a late finish tonight. You start early-ish tomorrow. It's hardly ideal. There's going to be a bit of rain in the morning.

MAX HOMA: Just wake up and do it, you know. Fortunately, I've got some adrenaline being here and playing with Tiger. So it will be fun. I mean, pretty cool problem to have. I've got to wake up early and play The Old Course.

Q. How do you feel physically after such a long round?

MAX HOMA: Yeah, I'm good. My back had been pretty tight the previous three days, but as of the last 24 hours, it's felt good. I was a little worried about how much we were standing around that it would tighten back up. I actually felt quite good.

Yeah, I don't think it will be anything crazy. I played 36 holes last week and came out and played okay the next day. Hopefully I can do that again.

Q. Were you nervous going into the round?

MAX HOMA: Yeah, I was very nervous. I felt a lot more calm than I thought I would, like, leading up to the tee. Then once we got to 1 and it was kind of just like me, Matt, and Tiger. You could feel the gravity of it. Felt a lot more nervous.

Then 1 is the easiest tee shot on the planet as far as nerves go. Matt and I were just talking about it. I didn't realize how many people were there until when Tiger got announced on 1, it was like a sea of people around us.

Then all of a sudden, I was, like, holy cow. So I was very nervous. The whole 1st hole, I was kind of having like an out-of-body experience. I actually felt like I settled in really nicely come 2, 3. I felt like then I started to feel like I was just playing golf, which was nice. But that 1st hole is different.

Q. How did it feel to hit a stinger in front of Tiger on that tee shot?

MAX HOMA: It was good. It was low, too, so it was nice. I hit one of my better ones. Yeah, it was cool. At that point, as long as I moved it forward, I was going to feel good.

I told Matt I was really happy he chunked his, so I had a lot of freedom to just do whatever I wanted.

Q. Between holes when you're waiting for minutes and hours, is it hard not to get inside your head? Do you have reset mechanisms or anything like that? How do you idle the time away?

MAX HOMA: Fortunately, honestly, we all talked a lot, talked to Joe a lot. Everybody was pretty chatty. Obviously we had to talk a lot.

Yeah, I guess we are used to waiting. It was just an insane amount of waiting. But I don't know, just catch up. I know what Matt's doing for vacation or holiday, as he says. I guess I learned a lot about that.

Q. You said that you were nervous. How do you manage your nerves, and how do you also manage the long round that it was today?

MAX HOMA: Nerves are easy. At some point you have to realize you're here for a reason. It's good to be nervous. That's okay. It's bad to be, like, scared. I wasn't scared. I was very excited.

Yeah, at some point you have to slow down because, when you're nervous, things -- you know, your body is just moving faster, everything is moving faster, your thoughts are moving faster.

But just like embracing it. I had a blast out there. And also I know that I'm a very, very good player. I'm ranked 19th in the world. Like, I was telling myself this morning, that I'd always wanted to play with Tiger in a practise round or something, and that would be something that was given to me. I feel like I earned this tee time in a way, and it just happens to be at the coolest golf course at the coolest tournament.

So that was a lot, but I just kind of tried to remind myself that there was a reason I was in this group. I think I went out there and played all right. It could have been a little cleaner, but I think just reminding yourself of that, that this isn't like a fluke. You can go out there and play good golf still.

Q. Other than talking, what other distraction -- ways of distracting yourself in the long round, how did you do that?

MAX HOMA: I don't know. The benefit, I think, is that this golf course -- like today was so demanding and hard, that it's not like you can get ahead of yourself. If you get ahead of yourself, you're going to be in trouble anyways. It did feel like I was very normal golf tournament locked in to make sure I was steady.

Majors are a different beast in themselves. It's just so hard. Like you're thinking all the time. So it's almost nice at times to have a break so you can just sit and kind of blank for a minute, yeah.

Q. What were your thoughts going down into the Road Hole bunker?

MAX HOMA: Good.

Q. That was not a very good lie?

MAX HOMA: No, it was awful. I told Joe I deserved because I tried to hit that thing right, and I flipped it left. Just tricky. That fairway is hard to hit today with how firm it is and wind off the right.

Right when I hit it in the fescue, just trying to hit anything short and right of the hole or bounce it up the right side, and I flipped it over there. I deserved to have a bad lie.

It's a grind. It's a good 5. I feel like those are the 5s you remember at the end of the week. So hopefully take some momentum with that.

I've never really played a bunker shot like that 7-iron and lob wedge. I guess that's something to tell my grandkids about.