Cal Sports Report

Max Homa Thrilled to Be Paired with Tiger Woods at British Open

Former Cal golfer also has Matt Fitzpatrick in his group, while ex-Golden Bear Collin Morikawa is part of an all-star threesome

Jake Curtis

Former Cal golfer Max Homa is 31 years old, is ranked 19th in the world and has won more than $13 million on the PGA Tour, yet he is as thrilled as a little kid that he will be paired with Tiger Woods for the first round of the British Open at St. Andrews.

Meanwhile, another former Golden Bears golfer, Collin Morikawa, is the defending champion of this major, and will be part of an all-star three-man grouping in his opening round.

Officially called the 150th Open Championships, the event will start on Thursday, although it will begin late Wednesday night on the West Coast in the United States. The first ball will be struck at 10:35 p.m. Pacific time on Wednesday.

The former Cal stars will not start until a little later.

Morikawa, who is ranked eighth in the world, will play with second-ranked Rory McIlroy and fifth-ranked Xander Schauffele in a threesome that will tee off at 1:58 a.m. Thursday Pacific time and will be watched closely. McIlroy is the betting favorite to win the event, according to Caesars Sportsbook, at 9-to-1. Schaufflele is tied with Jon Rahm as the second favorite at 14-to-1 odds, while Morikawa is at 25-to-1

Morikawa will be seeking his third major title and hopes to bounce back from a difficult performance at the Scottish Open, where he missed the cut. In fact, Morikawa missed the cut in two of his past three tournaments and has finished in the top 25 in just two of his past eight events. However, the two in which he finished in the top 25 may have been the most important ones – the Masters and the U.S. Open, placing fifth in each of those.

Homa has been more consistent recently and is coming off a 16th-place finish in the Scottish Open. He is expected to finish ahead of Woods, even though the thought playing with the golf legend has Homa all aflutter. The third member of that threesome, which will tee off at 6:59 a.m. Pacific time Thursday is 10th-ranked Matt Fitzpatrick, who won the U.S. Open four weeks ago and has finished in the top 10 in five of his last six tournaments. Fitzpatrick has the sixth-shortest odds to win at 18-to-1, while Homa is a 50-to-1 shot to get his first major title.

Still, much of the golfing world will be focused on Tiger, who is ranked 994th in the world and has played only tournaments this year – the Masters and the PGA Championships. He finished 47th at the Masters and made the cut at the PGA Championships but had to withdraw after the third round because his leg would not hold up.

Woods’ odds or winning the British Open are only slightly longer than Homa’s, as Tigers is pegged at 60-to-1 by Caesars Sportsbook. The 46-year-old Woods has won 15 majors, and his last win in a major was three years ago at the 2019 Masters. He has won the British Open three times, mostly recently in 2006.

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Cover photo of Tiger Woods and Max Homa is by Gary A. Vasquez, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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