Play every golf tournament at Riviera Country Club. This is the takeaway from Sunday’s exciting finish and two-hole play-off match between Max Homa and Tony Finau, which Homa won in the easiest meaningful victory of the year. Homa called it his Masters after the round, and it definitely had a big championship most of the day on Sunday.
The day started early with first, second and third round leaders Sam Burns (as well as several other players) completing a suspended third round with dawn. Burns took a healthy two-stroke lead over Dustin Johnson, Homa and Matthew Fitzpatrick in the final on a track that was fast, firm and wiped out players everywhere.
After a 31 in the foreground, Burns equalized for the first PGA Tour tournament in his career. But he melts a little to get home with a 38 on his back and opens the door to a field just standing there. Homa and Finau walk through.
Homa, who dreamed of just play shot a lock 66 as a child in this tournament to join Finau in the playoffs, but it ended in disaster. After stripping his shot on the 72nd hole just behind Finau to clear a 64-yard line, Homa hit the shot he always suggested: a baby pulls up to 40 inches to beat the best field of 2021.
Then he moved the stop.
It was just as exciting as golf being, but it would somehow get worse. On the first playoff hole, Homa hit his shot to the left and placed it next to a tree. His only shot was to chop a wedge and try to tie something to the front of the green. He somehow made a 4 – the same as Finau. It was the second consecutive day of miracles for Max at 10, who was to become the name Homa Hole.
Homa also finished second in the playoffs, and a Finau thug led to a No. 2 victory in Homa’s career. The range of emotions from the stiff at 18 to the missed putt to the stiff at no. 10 to the victory looked like a roller coaster of Jordan Spiethian. It was more surprising that he was upright at the end of it all than the fact that he won.
But the postscript was somehow better than the performance. After cleaning the green and Homa walked to the microphone, he immediately broke down. How could he not? If you care as much as Homa and win in a place like this the way he did, the words are shameful.
“I’ve been watching this tournament all my life,” he said. “That’s why I fell in love with golf.”
I hope you watch the whole clip of Homa. That is why it is the most important victory of 2021 so far. We make (rightly) many of the four big, biggest championships. But these are not the only golf tournaments that matter, and Homa is proof of that.
Location is important, and for Homa there is nowhere better than Riv. The presence is important, and for Homa to jump back like he did after the gaffe at no. 18, it was really staggering. People matter, and for Homa to win the tournament after which his family took him as a child, it is monumental. And the purpose is important. For Homa, it’s the next step as a sincere PGA tournament by winning a tournament that looked like a major on TV and definitely felt like one to him. Grade: A +
Jon Rahm (T5): I do not believe I only saw Rahm until the end of Sunday, and suddenly he shoots 66 and finishes T5. The cream almost always rises, and Rahm finishes fourth in this field from tea to green. Riviera has the ability to pick the best out of the best players, and Rahm was one of the best this week, even though he did not have a putter at all. Grade: A-
Dustin Johnson (T8): It was a tough Sunday for DJ after shooting 72 in the final group on a day when the average point dropped in the 60s. However, he did not have it from the jump because he parked the first one (an easy birdie pit) and never really got involved. His end comes at number 10 when he chops into a tree, makes 5 and falls far back from the leaders. Another pretty easy top 10 for him. Grade: B +
Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy (MC): They were 17 left in total and all three missed the weekend. Again, big championship-like courses tend to explain who plays nice golf, and none of these three had the goods this week. Tiger Woods spoke at the television tournament late Sunday and talked about the importance of corners at Riviera, and the combined four strokes that these three lost from the tee to the green indicate they are not playing it well. All three also suffered terribly, which did not help. There’s no long term problem here – Thomas missed two of the three tracks to start in 2020 and still won and McIlroy has not missed a cut in almost two years – but for one week in Los Angeles they all played so poorly than they can possibly play. Grade: F