At home with Max Homa: “I only play Call of Duty and I suck at it so bad”

If you tend to dip back into golf whenever the majors come around, then Max Homa is exactly the kind of dark horse you should be keeping an eye on this PGA Championship. Currently the 9th ranked player on the PGA Tour, and with a third-place finish at last month's Masters behind him, Homa has been inching ever closer to his first major. He’ll have to outplay the likes of Scheffler, Rahm and McIlroy over four days of lilting Kentucky heat, but the man with the strongest Twitter game in golf has his best shot yet at doing so.

“I want to be a bit more creative instead of having a perfectionist mindset,” the 33-year-old California transplant tells GQ from the parking lot of his go-to Arizona golf course. Before making that three-hour flight out east, you’re just as likely to find the lifelong LA Dodgers fan tuned into Shohei Ohtani’s Major League Baseball debut or bemoaning his fortunes in the Call of Duty: Warzone lobby. Well, that or clowning on randoms in his mentions. So ahead of Homa’s trip to the PGA Championship, he took part in GQ’s ‘At Home With’ series to talk us through his love-hate relationship with caps, the Berkeley-based origin story behind his beard and going from Tiger Woods PGA Tour on the PS2 to being presented his most cherished trophy yet — by the same man.

You’ve said in the past that you have a complicated relationship with golf: it’s given you a lot, but can be pretty taxing. Do you feel the same about polo shirts?

Oh man, I’m a member at a couple of golf courses that don't have a dress code but I still wear a polo golf shirt every time I go. As much as I wish we could wear shorts at times, I actually think golfers look better in pants too. There’s something about the polo: you know that person means business. However, I'm very open to the variations of it, like the blade collar that Nike has done with Tiger.

So given the choice, you wouldn’t be wearing a string vest in Augusta?

I thought that I was the other way, but the fact that I go to this golf course and wear a golf shirt every single day means I clearly think I look better in a polo. I started wearing FootJoy’s stuff two years ago. Growing up it was definitely not cool, but they wanted to make it younger and a little more unique. They've done a lot of great collaborations, especially for the majors as of late.

Whenever I go on your Instagram, you're wearing a cap?

I have shitty hair. Everyone's always like, “Oh man, you got a lot of hair.” I'm like, “I have a lot of hair right back there. I'm losing it everywhere else."

The running joke with my friends was that every day you saw me, I was going to be wearing an LA Dodgers hat. I've tried to get away from it because I realised I overdid it, but it's baseball season so I'll run that back again.

I can't remember the last time I went and really shopped for something. I've gotten Lululemon socks and boxers – those are my shopping necessities. I’m also so mindful of my wife trying to dress me. She bought me these light-coloured jeans that I really like in theory, [but] then when I put them on I feel like I'm in Miami Vice.

Baseball season has started. How are you watching a Dodgers game and what are you drinking?

I didn't grow up with a TV in my room so I don't like to isolate myself to watch stuff. I'd rather hang out with my wife and I can keep up with it while we’re eating dinner or whatnot. If it’s a very big game, she'll get into it a little bit – I put my time in with The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Elijah Craig has sent me quite a bit of stuff over the last year and a half, so I always like to dip into that if I have friends over. I always drink my bourbon straight but I've gotten a little bit better at making an Old Fashioned. I have the ingredients so that people can make what they want, but I still don't feel confident enough in myself to not ruin their drink.

How did your life and your home change after you first got your PGA tour card in 2013?

It really didn't. I went back and lived at home for like two years and then stayed in Valencia, California just north of Los Angeles. Then I ended up moving to the Orange County area with my now-wife and lived throughout southern California for a while. Now we live together in Arizona, which is a better hub for golf. When you're young, you don't mind getting in a cab at midnight and driving 50 minutes back to the house.

Did losing your card and regaining it again in 2019 change things in a major way?

I was lucky that early on in my career I made enough money where I wasn't really super stressed about the finance stuff. I never lived above my means and still don’t, so I never felt that I had to make a massive change when I wasn’t playing well. We moved out here because long-term, it just felt like this was going to be a better place to cultivate a good golf game and raise a family at the same time.

Speaking of which, who makes more mess at home: your dog or your son?

Oh man, definitely my son. We try to clean his playroom back up every night, but it is pretty wild. He really likes this one farmhouse thing with a slide. You put the animal in and then when it hits the bottom, it has a button and it makes an animal noise. He’s obsessed with that thing.

I want to talk about your beard a little bit. Does that go back to your Berkeley days?

No, it's actually because of my Berkeley days. My coach made us stay clean-shaven through college, at least for the big photo days — and we were never allowed to have a full beard, just a little scruff. As a guy who grows hair rapidly, it was a nightmare. Now my beard is just part of me. It's way too overdone at the moment, but I feel like I'm six when I don't have one.

My sister did buy me some beard oil as a gift but I haven’t dipped into it. I have a great barber who works right down the road from me and I do shampoo my beard to make sure it doesn't get disgusting, but I haven’t gotten into its full healthcare yet.

You’ve won a couple of tournaments now. Where do your trophies live at home?

I have an office and we got these big shelves put in behind my desk. So I have my video game set up on my desk and I have all my trophies behind me. They’re all cool and special, but the Genesis Invitational trophy from my hometown of Los Angeles is beautiful. I have a picture of it with myself and Tiger Woods who was the host and had to hand it over to me. He grew up in southern California, I'm from southern California and he played a lot of the junior events I played in growing up – his record is just unheard of.

So were you playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour on PS2 back in the day?

Yeah. PGA Tour and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater were the classics. Now I only play Call of Duty and I suck at it so bad. I keep saying I want a division where it's other working dads who have almost no time on their hands to be good. It's just very demoralising to come home, be really excited to play after a long road trip and then just get worked over for three hours. I need a beginner's level.

GQ spoke to Max Homa as part of his partnership with Elijah Craig bourbon. Find out more at elijahcraig.com

READ MORE…

At home with Gary Neville: 'United's treble-winners were the best-dressed team of all-time'

At home with James Blunt: “Fuck, I own a pub"

At home with Stanley Tucci: “My dream dinner party? Eleanor Roosevelt, the Obamas and Groucho Marx”

At home with Bear Grylls: “I often cook with my machete”