Max Homa has one of the best swings in the game but for a long time, it had a very specific flaw. After pairing up with Golf Digest’s No.1-ranked teacher, Mark Blackburn, he was able to identify the reason for the flaw and unlock Max’s true potential. In this Film Study, our very own Luke Kerr-Dineen explains what the pair found and how it led Homa to become one of the game’s elite ball-strikers.
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Max Homer’s golf swing is easy to love
the club moves in nice clean lines and
the movement itself just looks so
natural but in pointing out the stuff
that we like it’s easy to overlook the
key concept which transformed Max’s Game
and his golf swing and it’s a concept
that you should know because it’s what
makes beautiful golf swings like this
look and feel so easy so let’s take a
closer look
Max Homer probably has my favorite golf
swing on tour right now and it’s not
hard to see why even Max’s Idol Tiger
Woods likes his
mood Max Homer’s golf swing has always
been really pretty to the eye and it
helped him become a good player a really
good player a top Junior golfer turned
top college golfer and PGA Tour winner
but he wasn’t a great player not yet
anyway way that’s because his golf swing
for as good as it looked never produced
the truly Elite results that he craved
in Max’s first two seasons on tour he
finished 106th and 87th in Strokes gain
T green but then something changed and
he jumped up to
69th and then
24th and then 15th in Strokes gain T
green so what happened it happened in
2020 when Homer linked up with future
Golf Digest number one ranked teacher in
America Mark Blackburn when Mark and Max
first joined forces the first thing they
did wasn’t going to the range but going
to a gym that’s because Blackburn ran a
titless performance Institute assessment
on homer which is a kind of test coaches
do on golfer’s body it helps them figure
out what golfers can and crucially can’t
do and when they did this on Max they
found something very
interesting Max he had trouble doing
this test which is called the lat test
golfers sit up against the wall like
this hold their arms out straight and
then try to raise their arms until they
can touch the wall behind their
heads this wasn’t easy for Max he
struggled to put his shoulders into
flexion Blackburn said which meant it
wasn’t easy for Max to raise his arms
above his head put simply Max didn’t
have quite as much flexibility in his
shoulders as other PG T players so what
we did is we screened Max and looked at
how he moved and for Max he really
struggles with what we call shoulder
flexion or getting his arms above his
head his lap Mobility so what we’ve done
and you can see here when he was with us
in November doing a data capture we’ve
tried to get the lead arm to be more in
line with the shoulders and use a little
bit of a steeper shoulder plane to
elevate the club this kind of limited
shoulder Mobility is actually really
common in amateur golfers especially if
you sit slouched at a desk all day try
this test yourself and it might reveal
something interesting about your own own
golf
swing when it came to Max’s golf swing
it caused him some minor issues that
ultimately they were costing him that
tiny bit of consistency he was seeking
Homie used to work hard on trying to get
his arms up on the back swing which
again was difficult for him to do and
then once the club did get up he needed
to get the club in his arms back down
which again wasn’t much easier because
his shoulders lacked that little bit of
range and motion this up down movement
was as hard work for hom like someone
with tight hamstrings trying to reach
for their toes H’s body would start
making other Moves In order to help him
do it blackw says H’s hips often would
begin thrusting subtly towards the ball
on the downswing a move you might know
as early extension if you’re standing up
moving towards the ball not a lot of
good stuff’s going to happen right you
really got two choices you’re either
because your lower body is standing up
it invades the space for your arms and
now the club either is going to push the
ball out to the right or you’re sick and
tired of pushing it all of a sudden you
flip it around and now you hook
it this is a common move in golfers who
lack a little bit of flexibility in
their shoulders that’s because it’s hard
to raise and lower your arms without
getting too steep So to avoid this
players instinctively move their hips
and body towards the ball which makes it
easier for their arms to drop in
behind but the downside is it’s really
easy to overdo this move to move your
body too much towards the ball and leave
your arms stuck way too far behind your
body the only way out of this is to flip
and roll your wrists really hard to save
it in Max’s case it was a minor move but
even that small compensation just wasn’t
that
consistent Blackburn calls this Max’s
planing mechanism and it was off because
it didn’t match what Max’s body could do
best so max began hitting the gym hard
to improve this shoulder Mobility with
the help of Highly regarded trainer
Colby Wayne and he and Blackburn began
making a few technical tweaks to his
golf swing first the pair added a little
bit more upper body tilt and hip hinge
at set up so his chest was a little
closer to the ground Max is so
methodical about this that if you look
closely you can actually see him doing
it before every single shot with his
upper body tilted more down next Mark
wanted Max to get his arms deeper and
more around his body on the back swing
you can see the difference here it’s
slight but look closely and it is there
and it is important before Max’s arms
and Club shaft would move more
vertically now his Club is more in line
with his left arm and his left arm
itself intersects with his right
shoulder it makes a lot of sense why Max
had trouble moving his arms up and down
that was difficult but he could move his
arms around that that felt easy and
really
natural when Max was working hard to get
his arms up toward WS the sky he needed
to thrust his hips to bring them back
down but when he moved his arms more
around it allowed Max to stay in his
posture instead of trying to waste his
energy undoing something now he could
turn aggressively through it helped Max
gain speed accuracy and most importantly
consistency in each of his last two
seasons Max has now featured in the top
25 in Strokes gain T to Green
now his golf swing feels so easy that
Max describes himself as levitating at
the top of his back swing a small
singular moment before turning
aggressively
through what started as a slight
physical limitation has now unlocked the
secret to Max Homer’s golf swing it’s
created one of the most attractive and
consistent moves in the game but the
next time you watch it remember that the
secret to his success wasn’t in trying
to perfect another player’s golf swing
or find something something completely
new but rather to master something of
his own to discover something that was
actually right there all along
1 Comment
One of the cleanest swings on tour