Max Homa climbs back into Genesis Invitational, doesn’t play to ‘sniff cut line’

After a rough opening round on Thursday, Max Homa carded one of the low scores of the day at Riviera Country Club on Friday.

Homa sealed the deal with a 6-under 65, moving him into contention nearly 50 spots up the Genesis Invitational leaderboard. He is currently tied for 12th place at 4 under to win the championship.

“I’ve been just waiting for the last few months to make a few putts and make things a little easier for me,” Homa explained after the second round.

“I didn’t actually play that well. I hit the irons better than yesterday, but when you don’t hit anything just yesterday, it feels like you’re playing too perfectly.”

On Friday, Homa improved by three or more shots on the green, ranking second among players competing in the Genesis Invitational. He lost 1.642 strokes with his putt the previous day, ranking 60th out of 70 players.

He started the second round and hit a 14-footer in the first round, which gave him a lot of confidence.

“I’ve been frustrated the last few weeks with so many putts inside 10 feet and so few putts inside 10 feet,” Homa added.

“So it was nice to make a couple and relieve some stress. I took a bad swing once on the 8th and then made a long putt. I just hadn’t done that in a while.”

Homa hit a 34-foot shot on No. 8 to jump into red. At this point he was 3 under for the round and 1 under for the win.

But he was still flirting with the cut line.

“I want to be able to make mediocre plays as well.” [poor] I didn’t play well the first day, but I didn’t play well the next day. This is to prevent people from sniffing out the cut line,” Homa explained.

“I want to play so I can get back to golf tournaments.”

Homa did just that, putting himself in a position to take action on Saturday.

Photo by Harry Howe/Getty Images

After birdieing from distance on the 8th, Homa hit two more on the 9th and 10th.

He then made three more birdies in the final stages, but two bogeys on the par-4 15th and par-3 16th meant he was unable to move down the order.

“I feel like I’m doing everything I can and doing all the right things. I feel like I’m doing everything right, so it’s a nice breath of fresh air coming into this round,” Homa said. Told.

“My swing wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t terrible. The feel of the putter was great and I didn’t have anything in it. So some of my work is paying off today. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep a little better tonight.”

After finishing tied for 14th at The Sentry and tied for 13th at the Farmers Insurance Open, Homa struggled to maintain momentum at Pebble Beach and Phoenix.

He finished tied for 66th at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and missed the cut at the WM Phoenix Open.

But his performance this week has been a huge improvement from his previous starts. Perhaps he can keep this momentum going Saturday and be in position to pick up another win at the Genesis Invitational.

Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.Be sure to check it out @_PlayingThrough Cover more golf. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko In the same way.