Collin Morikawa, Max Homa Headed in Opposite Directions on PGA Tour

Here are the results of former Cal golfers Collin Morikawa and Max Homa in their past four PGA Tour events, since the Masters. Can you guess which results belong to Morikawa and which belong to Homa?

Golfer No. 1 results: 26th, 29th, 55th, 40th.

Golfer No. 2 results: 21st, win, 13th, 23rd.

Give up? Well, unless you follow the tour closely you'd be surprised to learn that Golfer No. 1 is Morikawa and Golfer No. 2 is Homa.

Homa finished no worse than 23rd in any of the four events since the Masters and won one of them, and he is playing the best golf of his pro career while entertaining folks with his tweets and podcasts.

Morikawa finished no better than 26th in any of his four events since the Masters and won none of them. In fact, Morikawa is the only player ranked in the top 10 who has not won a PGA Tour event this season. That's a little misleading because he did win the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai as well as the British Open last July, but he has not won an event in the United States in the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.

The two golf stars who played their college golf in Berkeley seem to be headed in opposite directions, as reflected in their results in this past weekend's Charles Schwab Challenge:

Homa shot a 2-under-par 68 in the final round and finished at 1-under.

Morikawa fired a 1-over-par 71 in the fourth round and finished at 2-over.

Four things to remember about Morikawa:

---He's just 25 years old.

---He's ranked No. 4 in the world.

---He has won two majors -- the 2020 PGA Championship and the 2021 British Open.

---Every golfer goes through some rough spots

---Morikawa's game and mental approach are so solid that he will return to elite level before long.

The odd thing about Morikawa's recent struggles are that they began immediately after he holed a shot from the bunker on the final hole of The Masters.

On repeat 🔁 I’ve never heard the echoes and roars at Augusta until now, thank you! See you next time @TheMasters pic.twitter.com/M0C6gxwhMZ
— Collin Morikawa (@collin_morikawa) April 11, 2022

That final-round 67 left him in fifth place at the Masters, and he seemed primed for success. It hasn't happened.

Before the Charles Schwab Challenge he noted the struggles of Justin Thomas before he won the PGA Championship.

"I've just been a little bit frustrated, but it was kind of cool to see what Bones had to say to J.T. last week because a lot of us, even though we don't know it, sometimes we're all going through the same issue," Morikawa told reporters. "You just set really high standards for yourself, and at the end of it it's just let's go out and play golf. Game has felt good, practice has felt good, but I've said that for the past two months, and the results really haven't been there."

Jim "Bones" Mackay gave Thomas a pep talk after his third round at Southern Hills.

A dry spell is not an unusual occurrence for top golfers.

Tiger Woods did not win a tournament in 2010 or 2011, but then won eight over the next two years.

Justin Thomas had not won a tournament since March 2021 before winning the PGA Championship. (By the way, Thomas missed the cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge.)

Rest assured Morikawa's slump -- if you want to call it that -- will end soon, perhaps in the Memorial Tournament his week in Dublin, Ohio.

Both Morikawa and Homa are scheduled to play the Memorial, and suddenly Homa looks like one of the favorites.

At age 31, Homa is playing his best golf. From the outside he seems like a happy-go-lucky guy who for a long time was known more for spreading a little laughter with frequent tweets and entertaining podcasts than his golf on the PGA Tour.

That is changing.

Five years ago, when Homa was the age Morikawa is now, Homa was not among the top 400 in the world golf rankings for a while. He uses those tough days as fuel.

"It's something I carry with me," he said after winning the Well Fargo Championship on May 8. "It's powerful, I feel other guys don't have that. . . I saw $18,000 in a year out here. I saw feeling very, very small. Literally having no hope as to making, getting a top-10, let alone making a cut that season. So I carry that, because I've seen it. And you come in a lead [at this event] and I'm three strokes up, now one stroke up -- it just doesn't faze me as much as I feel like it could, because I know what bad is and my bad today was gonna be making a boat-load of money and moving along to the PGA Championship in two weeks with a goof chance to win."

He's making a bit more than $18,000 this season. Homa has earned $4,465,960, which is the eighth-highest earnings on the tour this season. It's also more than the $3.6 million Morikawa has made this season as the 15th-highest money earner.

Homa is currently ranked 28th in the world, his highest ranking ever, and he is sixth in the FedExCup standings. He has already won twice during the 2021-22 season.

This recent rise to pseudo-stardom has not affected his twitter sense of humor:

Urinate https://t.co/bych7JeB12
— max homa (@Maxhoma) May 30, 2022

I think they’re underutilized and much cooler than unicycles https://t.co/3rq7vfKcdD
— max homa (@Maxhoma) May 30, 2022

No issue is too ridiculous

1000 Francesco’s. Kokrak would squish me in his normal size https://t.co/sNONhUQT9G
— max homa (@Maxhoma) May 30, 2022

Blonde https://t.co/lrZ9QVtrmw
— max homa (@Maxhoma) May 30, 2022

Microwave, dishwasher, crushed ice maker https://t.co/TgFgOawRnn
— max homa (@Maxhoma) May 30, 2022

And these were just a few of the many Homa tweets within about an hour on Monday afternoon. Could you imagine Jack Nicklaus answering tweets like this?

You have to love the fact that Homa keeps his perspective on who he -- and who he isn't.

He has become a crowd favorite because of his interaction with them on social media, and he says he really enjoys it.

If he climbs into the top 10 or wins a major, would he still respond to questions about his thoughts on pogo-sticks? I think he would. If he gets into the top 10 or wins a major, I think he would become the most popular player on the tour.

He no longer has his own podcast, but you just think of Homa as a guy you'd like to sit beside in front of a TV and drink a beer while watching a Cal football game.

Here's a podcast featuring Homa this past February:

Here is a May 2020 Max Homa podcast with co-host Shane Bacon, talking to Justin Rose:

Cover photo of Collin Morikawa by Michael Madrid, USA TODAY Sports

Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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