Fortinet champ Homa is back; so is LIV controversy

NAPA, Calif. — The best thing about this LIV Tour business, or maybe the worst thing, is it has mature men who make millions hitting a little ball across exquisitely groomed fields acting like, well, less than mature men.

Not included in the category is Max Homa, the Cal grad, who on Thursday opened defense of the Fortinet Championship at Silverado Country Club and took part in a controversy not entirely of his own creation.

As you are aware, a group of billionaire oil sheiks, urged on by a disenfranchised Greg Norman, who very well could play golf but not the game of life, has chosen to take its assets and confront the sport’s establishment, the PGA Tour by forming a new tour, the LIV.

So golf, an activity in which competitors call penalties on themselves and invariably shake hands at the close of play, is now full of controversy and anger.

You probably are aware that people such as Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have positioned themselves on the side of the Tour. Well, so has Homa, if because he is less famous not as noticeably. Except to a few LIV zealots, including former president Donald Trump.

The Presidents Cup is a competition between teams from the U.S. and anyplace other than Europe, for which the players qualify either via a yearly point system or through the selection of the team captain.

The captain of the American team for the match in two weeks is Davis Love III, and he picked Homa, which since Max finished tied for fifth in the FedEx standings seems not only legitimate but appropriate.

However, one individual says Homa should not have been selected because he’s never won a major championship. The critic has been identified as a supporter of Donald Trump.

Homa, given name John Maxwell Homa, has never been one to avoid any issue, particularly one in which he is involved. He needed to work his way up from what then was the Buy.com Tour to the big leagues. The victory in last year’s Fortinet was his fourth on the PGA Tour.

Asked about the struggle between the LIV and the PGA Tour, Homa used the word “bizarre.”

“It’s actually funny,” he added. “Last year, I was saying this seemed like the craziest time to be alive. My grandma said it’s not so crazy. I said, what do you mean? She said, ‘You’re on this planet long enough, you just kind of go with the flow.’”

That is not to be confused with going with the LIV Tour.

“Yeah,” said Homa, “the landscape of golf seems like it’s changing. As a fan and a member of the PGA Tour, I’m not happy. I’m not happy that a lot of people are being snarky on both sides.

“I’d like golf to succeed out here, but I think it’s easy to look at it and say the PGA Tour is getting diluted a bit. But there are a lot of great golfers in the world. There are a lot of people picking on one side, on both sides, and that’s a bummer.”

He said the questions about him being named to the Presidents Cup team were a big deal.

Indeed, but still not as big as the question about what will happen as the PGA Tour and LIV continue to make a mess out of things.