Just days after saying on-course outbursts cast a bad look and that professional golfers “need to be held to a higher standard,” Max Homa threw his club in frustration after a poor shot during the final round of the RBC Heritage on Sunday.
Homa failed to get back to the fairway after hitting his drive into a tree-filled waste area on the par-5 15th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He angrily flung his club in a downward motion, with it bouncing about 15 yards.
On Wednesday, when asked about Sergio García’s antics on a tee box at the Masters last week, Homa was blunt about how he felt.
“I don’t like when people break clubs. I don’t like when people beat up the golf course because we deal with it, and I think the breaking clubs makes us look very, very spoiled,” Homa said. “… I definitely think beating up a golf course would be probably tops just because the rest of us have to play it.”
Garcia, who was given a code-of-conduct warning, issued an apology for his outburst on social media Tuesday, expressing “regret” for slamming his driver into the turf on the No. 2 tee box at Augusta National, causing apparent damage, before hitting his driver against a cooler and snapping the head off the club.
It is not the first time Homa has lost his cool, and he admitted as much on Wednesday. He was caught flinging a club down the fairway during last year’s PGA Championship and at the WM Phoenix Open in 2023.
“I say a lot of bad words. I very much try to do it not when a kid can hear,” Homa said Wednesday. “So I do think there’s some, hey, don’t say it in front of the wrong person, like be a bit aware of your surroundings. Not saying I’ve never done it.”
The PGA Tour has been developing a code-of-conduct policy for competition, and the Masters was the first tournament to use it. The other majors are also likely to use the policy — which ramps up to disqualification on a third violation — this year.
