Max Homa Weighs In On New Tour Championship Format; Hails Jack Nicklaus & His Wife Barbara

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Max Homa has shared his thoughts on the proposed changes to the Tour Championship format, offering a candid take on how it could impact players and fans alike.

Speaking at the Memorial Tournament, Homa also took time to praise Jack Nicklaus and his wife Barbara, calling them shining examples of what makes the PGA Tour special — both on and off the course.

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now with a kid it’s great you know with the zoo and there’s tons of parks they have a library like all these great things so my family loves it but I’ve I don’t know i’ve just played pretty well here and uh it’s a really tough test of golf but it’s just like a historic golf course um you know Tiger has thousands of highlights from here so I just feel like you’ve seen it as a kid growing up so many times it’s always fun to come to places like that are any any of those moments kind of stick out to you especially as it relates to Tiger and just some of the memories he’s he’s made here over the years yeah I mean a lot it’s it’s very hard to pitch around here the rough’s really thick and the greens all run towards the one direction you know towards the other side of the green off the rough into the water and I mean he’s hold out like 700 times so like I just don’t I’m just not that good at aiming but uh yeah just um yeah there’s just tons of those kinds of highlights the 11th hole he said you know everyone seen the two irons and all that so just crazy awesome all right take questions dylan you want to go ahead we got a mic to you in a minute max do you feel like the golf course is playing harder this year than other times you’ve been here it’s just always hard it is always hard it does feel like that um it’ll be interesting to see the scores the next couple days to measure it because the last few years I’ve been here I feel like it’s just been incredibly firm and that’s been the test with such difficult greens it’s like it’s been impossible to leave the ball in a good spot at times but this year the rough feels like a US Open a bit more i mean I had a couple lies today that you’re just trying to get it 70 yards down the fairway and then you have to deal with I mean the greens are still relatively firm so I’ll be interested to see usually when it gets we get rain and some kind of soft it isn’t um it’s a it’s a birdie fest i don’t believe it will be but you could see somebody I think if they drove it really well for a day you could get hot i just don’t know if you could do that for four days but um that’ll be interesting to see okay just get a mic up here to the front row max can you just talk about kind of what this tournament means to a lot of the players why it’s so special and kind of how you’ve gotten to know uh Jack over the years and seeing what this means to him as well yeah I think um I think everybody has their like as a kid favorite tournament whether it’s in your hometown that’s how mine kind of started or an event you’ve gone to a lot or one that you just happen to watch you know with your parents or whatever um but then there’s three that stick out amongst above them all in my opinion it’s the three with the three legends of the game who uh you know have tied their name to an event so obviously having Jack Nicholas’s name on an event at his you know you know as they call Jack’s place is a massive deal uh I think even if you’re not a historian of the game like that name speaks loudly or in volumes and it’s been a venue that I think all of us on tour have just seen hundreds of times on TV um it’s always had just like incredible finishes or incredible winners and um I just think those three events in particular just stand out because of who’s tied and obviously when you have the greatest major champion of all time uh it’s pretty pretty awesome um and like I said the city shows out for this tournament like today is crazy out there and the weather’s not very good so it’s impressive so I think all those things combined make it such a desirable tournament to compete in when you talk about all that he’s accomplished and legendary status like you say now that you’re playing it and you’re going through it and the grind do you kind of grow to appreciate more what guys like him and Tiger have accomplished like do you kind of sit there and be like “Well this is really hard to do now that you’re actually living in it.” Yeah for sure the one I usually use uh is like the Tiger’s 142 cuts it not to say to say before I didn’t think that was incredible but I played one year on tour and realized that that is like an impossible feat uh nearly it didn’t seem real after getting to experience it so like Jack Nicholas’s 18 majors is incredible i could obviously never picture that one but like I think he’s got 19 seconds so 37 top twos in a major i mean that’s I think that’s more top 10s than I’ve had on tour in my whole career not to say I’ve had like this illustrious career but like that’s just like hard to fathom and that’s just in majors four chances a year so there’s things that stick out more than just like the wins and it’s just like the longevity and the consistency of that is I mean that’s what you see with great great players but then there’s a couple or a few like legends and you see why over here Rob yeah Max you just mentioned Tiger and Jack uh two of probably the most mentally strong players who have played the game is golf more of a mental or physical challenge would you say and for you personally which one’s which one’s harder to master or try to master uh the physical is much harder to master um there’s like a there’s a blueprint on how to like mentally approach a week and to put yourself in the right headsp space i do think that people like a Jack Nicholson and Tiger Woods rightfully so get dubbed as the mentally toughest and strongest and all those things out there but I do think it helps that they’re really good at golf i’m sure there’s I mean Web Simpson sticks out in my mind he’s had a really good career he’s never going to be talked about in the Jackson Tigers um you know of of the game when he ends his career but that’s one of the most positive people I’ve been around peter Malady is like that you wouldn’t know what they shot if you were following them if you missed like you first eight holes they could be 10 over and they would be doing the same stuff so I think you do get more credit for it when you win a bunch of majors uh not to say that that’s not a massive part of why they dominated i do think it’s very impressive when people like them two you see what Scotty’s doing what Rory’s done for his career that they you know I I think Scotty and my generation is the best I’ve seen at it he’s really amazing you can watch it um I think it’s it’s more impressive in a way because he could give up a lot of weeks and just like last week he did not need to grind for whatever he got fourth place we all know he’s good life you know life’s good but he does and I think that’s that to me is the most impressive not to say other people don’t have that but like just where he is in the game and where Tiger’s been and where Jack’s been it’s just like to keep doing that year after year is amazing let’s go back over here max the event that you did last night with the the Chipotle head covers like what does it mean to be able to collaborate with like your favorite thing also give back to some high school kids who you know want to be like Max Helmo yeah that was a super pinch me moment um very lucky uh two people sitting behind you have helped quite a bit uh make a it’s a dream to play on tour it’s probably a bigger dream for me to be friends with the CEO of Chipotle to be quite honest uh since college on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley uh I have been going to that place just religiously so it’s crazy to think that we’re doing things you know together uh but yeah then you add in you know all the volunteers were there which is really cool or most of the volunteers were there which is really cool to get to put a face to all the hard work uh and then yeah getting to meet anytime you get to meet up and coming golfers high school especially just it’s awesome because one it gets you put yourself back in their shoes and just like you realize now like how much there is to learn and enjoy with golf whether you play professionally or not and then also just to feel like you know it’s just still like makes me laugh that a kid will be like excited especially like we know how it is like 16-year-olds are too cool for school so when they get excited to get Chipotle and take a picture with me it’s pretty still I have to pinch myself a little bit we’ll go back over to Dylan where are you at with your uh golf game and I guess general vibes going into this week um I know there’s a lot of good stuff with the PGA and probably some other stuff too yeah I think since Philly Cricket Club for the truest is this um my thoughts have been a lot more organized about what I’m doing with my golf swing i don’t feel like I have this like disaster golf i played really poorly the weekend uh the PGA but it didn’t feel like I left there thinking that I needed to fix a whole lot it’s just there’s little things you know Saturday exposed me in the wind but it wasn’t like a some major overhaul i’ve left most weeks this season being like what do I fix what do I fix and the last the last event I just felt like I just needed to clean a lot of things up it didn’t feel as bad as the score did which most weeks have felt worse than the score was and the score was very bad so um it feels good had a really good five iron yesterday on 17 um so it feels much better it feels really like it looks and feels a lot like my old golf swing like my favorite version of my golf swing so it’s with some time I get more comfortable with misses i get on TE’s like number two here has never suited my eye not even when I was um playing like the best golf of my life so it’s kind of nice to get on that tee and still feel that discomfort but I have a plan of what I’m going to do instead of just hoping that the ball goes straight so it’s definitely been a it’s not been fun um but I do see fun days ahead which gives me you know just makes it a little bit lighter I guess i just I guess a lot of the weeks early in the year just felt like if I don’t play well this week like then what and this week feels the last few weeks it felt more like okay if I don’t play well this week it’ll be another week so I think that’s been a big change what do you make of the new tour championship format i like it um there’s a ton of things you could do to it i I have hated for a while how so much of it is tied into the money and and I mean that for on the fans side like it’s just I just don’t know why you would care so to make it about the competition and to make it about winning something and and not cultivating it to like make sure that the guy who had the best year is going to probably win like I just never made a lot of sense i I I’m a fan of you know so many other sports and I know we’re not exactly like them but the storylines that come with the Warriors losing after having the best season of all time um the history of the Patriots losing to the Giants after being undefeated like those are things that we ti like we hold on to and it it’s not to take away from their season it’s just you just got to keep earning it so I really like everyone starting even um it’s still incredibly hard to make it to that final 30 um it is the sign of an amazing year so if you’re there you know you should have a chance at the title in my opinion so I like what they’ve done um again there’s a million different things you could do but just starting at zero is easier to digest and I don’t know it just felt like before if you got to tour championship at even or one under even one year I played great all year and I was start I think I started like six back of Scotty and it’s like it just is not a didn’t feel hyper competitive and it just feels like every year you would end up with two or three people with on the weekend had a chance and that’s not exciting um so I’m just glad we’re back to uh you know golf as we kind of know it um and I think that it will produce a lot more excitement in what should be our you know most exciting event colin ready max Barbara is about to be honored as the honore can you speak to the inspiration that Jack and Barbara are to families on tour as a husband and a father yourself and is there any advice that you and Lacy have ever received from the Nicholases uh we have not i’ve never been um I’m not a Florida guy so it’s hard to get close to Mr or Mrs nicholas um I’ve gotten to speak with him but just about golf but I think it’s amazing i I you know the the term it takes a village that starts in at least in my life and in this game with uh my wife especially when you have a kid like today for instance I woke up very early uh got to the course before everybody was up so that means she’s up with my son on a three-hour time change you know getting him dressed getting him uh fed she brought him here he came here uh wanted to putt wasn’t allowed to putt had a fit she has to take him away and then I just go back to work and work is different in my world work is my dream like this is what I like to do um and she’s you know loves to take care of my kid but I imagine that gets exhausting at some point all by herself so to see you know the N obviously we all get to see what Jack Nicholas has done we all admire him his career is incredible him hosting this event has been incredible uh what he’s done in the sport designing golf course is incredible but there is a very important person standing right next to him that it feels very fitting that she gets honored because I don’t think it happens quite as often as it as it should and uh I’m sure she is uh hopefully having a a great time with that and and a great you know day and and week with that um because it’s welld deserved and again as someone who doesn’t even know what they go through on a day-to-day basis obviously I know Ish what it’s like and she has done a ton and you know his career is amazing but she’s been amazing as well i think that’s a great place to leave it thanks for the time Max best luck this week four all right left