Max Homa has one of the most beautiful swings in golf.
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Six-time PGA Tour winner John Maxwell Homa was the individual champion at the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship while attending the University of California Berkeley. The 10th ranked player in the world has been ranked as high as fifth but had never cracked the top 70 until he started working with GOLF Top 100 Teachers Mark Blackburn in mid-2020.
Homa, 33, finished T9 in his first PGA Tour event as a professional at the Frys.com Open and earned his first win at the Web.com Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am. He finished 17th on the Web.com money list to earn his PGA Tour card for the 2014–15 season. In 2019, Max won Wells Fargo Championship for his first PGA Tour win.
Since June 2020, Blackburn’s main focus has been reducing Homa’s arm lift on the backswing and adjusting his swing to more fade. Max went on to win four times over the next three years and was selected to play on the 2022 US President’s Cup team. After a win at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open, Homa went 3–1–1 at the 2023 Ryder Cup in Italy.
In November 2023, he won the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, shooting 19-under to earn his first victory outside the U.S. In January of this year, Homa hit a 477-yard drive during the third round of the Sentry , the longest. drive into the ShotLink era of the PGA Tour. Talk about Maxed out!
Below we break down the six steps to stripping it down like Homa.
6 steps to swing like Max
1. Address
Homa rises with a slight bend in the knee, a relatively tall stance and extended arms. All of this helps him execute his spin-focused swing. But even with all these straight elements, it manages to round the upper back and shoulders to free the arms.
2. Takeaway
The “triangle” of Max’s arms and club remains largely intact without much body twist compared to his Tour peers. This motion keeps the clubhead up and out of his hands and places his swing in the center of the fade.
3. Ball
Max adds a ton of torso rotation at the end of the backstroke while maintaining some bend in his right knee. His early delivery out and up becomes much flatter at the top, thanks to a lower wing angle.
4. Discount
Because of his late, rounded return, Max starts low without going too far on the outside. Look at the shaft of the club – he’s splitting his right forearm perfectly, even as his hips open at breakneck speed.
5. Impact
If you want to hit fair balls and fades, this is your ideal hitting position: hips and stomach facing the target, shoulders relatively level, and the right arm still under the left.
6. Release
Homa manages his flight of the ball from left to right without a swept and restrained release. Notice how the butt of the club is being steered by the camera – great. Both arms straight – even better. And the toe is up. As we often say on these pages, copy this!
