POTOMAC, MD ( Associated Press) — Max Homa played solid, steady golf during a week of cold, wet conditions and dueled back and forth with Keegan Bradley on Sunday, scoring a 2-under 68 for a two-shot victory. It ended with Wells Fargo Championship.
A rising star on the PGA Tour whose only missing achievement is contention in a major, 31-year-old Homa finished 8-under 272 at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farms. He won for the fourth time overall, third in 15 months and second since leaving his popular podcast.,
“I just feel like I’m coming into myself. I’m starting to believe in myself a lot and that’s all I can ask for,” said Homa, whose next start at the PGA Championship in two weeks Will be
With his win in Napa, California last September, Homa joined Scotty Scheffler (four), Hideki Matsuyama (two), Sam Burns (two) and Cameron Smith (two) as multiple winners on this season’s tour . He also moves to sixth in the Presidents Cup standings, which means he’s in a position to earn a return trip this September to Wells Fargo’s usual home, Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Homa got her first career win in 2019 at Quail Hollow, starting the year as host of Wells Fargo, while it prepares for a US-versus-international team competition. TPC Potomac, which last hosted the tour in 2018, filled in well despite torrential rains on Friday and Saturday and unseasonably cold temperatures for most of the week.
Bradley started the day with a two-shot lead, giving it to the par-5 second hole and taking it back to the par-4 eighth, before Homa took command for good on the back nine. A bogey on the closing hole gave Bradley a 2-over 72 and a tie for another with Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick.
Homa played conservatively on Saturday, the hardest scoring day of the week, but was on the offensive on Sunday, keeping his umbrella in his golf bag for the first time since the opening round.
He swung his 7-iron as he saw his approach on the par-4 first hole, 8 feet from the hole. A lob wedge of 8 feet on the par-4 fifth was good for another birdie, and a 7-iron within 10 feet on the par-3 ninth turned her to 34, 2 under for the day and tied with Bradley. , which stabilized itself after a nervous start.
While trying to move up the world rankings high enough to secure a spot at the US Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, the 35-year-old New England native hit a poor shot from a greenside bunker on the par-5 second hole. Due to which there was a double bogey. Later, caddy Scott Vail asks the police to escort some annoying fans out.
Bradley rallied with a 21-foot birdie and a firm fist pump on par-4 fifth, a par save from a difficult lie on sixth, a 14-footer that he went for a birdie on seventh and an 8-iron one. And 4 ft at No. 8 for the birdie.
The next two two-shot swings between the last pair were Homa’s. Bradley found the penalty area on the green on the 11th hole, which was the toughest this week, and Homa double bogeyed with an equal save. When Homa converted another birdie in par-4 15th, she had a three-shot lead with three to play.
Homa had to make a 5-footer to the bogie on the 16th par-4 as Bradley made a birdie to go inside one. The pair traded Paras at 17 and it was finally over when Homa overtook his birdie put in the tap-in range at 18.
Young made six birdies ranging in length from 8 feet to 6 inches in his final 66 for his third runner-up finish in the 24-year-old rookie season on the Tour. Fitzpatrick scored a bogey-free 67 on the 18th birdie.
The biggest gallery of the day came from Rory McIlroy, who started the day with six shots from the lead and 10 holes from 3 under. But he stalled from there and ended up single-handedly in fifth place with a bogey 68, four shots behind.
Comments: Jason Day, first and second round leader, finished at 1 under with 70. … Stewart had a low round of Sink on Sunday, 65 which saw him 2 under . shifted to the ninth place part on
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