Cal Golf: Playoff Loss Sidelines Max Homa From WGC-Dell Match Play Tourney

Max Homa scored a convincing win over J.T. Poston, but lost a three-hole sudden-death tiebreaker against Billy Horschel and was eliminated Friday from the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play tournament at Austin, Texas.

Fellow ex-Cal golfer Collin Morikawa, playing in the same four-man pool, lost his match to Horschel 3 and 2 to complete three days with just a single point.

Homa and Horschel each wound up with four points, forcing the playoff. They each shot par not the first hole and bogeyed the second before Horschel, seeded No. 32 in the 64-player event, made birdie on the third extra hole to advance to weekend play.

Homa, seeded No. 35, fought off elimination earlier in his Friday match against Poston, who could have clinched a spot in Saturday’s round of 16 with a victory. Homa made it to the playoff despite four bogeys as Poston never carded a birdie after the fifth hole.

Homa fared much better than Morikawa, the fourth seed. Morikawa halved Wednesday’s match vs. Poston, the No. 63 seed in the tournament, then lost on back-to-back days to Homa and Horschel.

Neither Morikawa nor Horschel had a bogey on Friday, but Horschel assembled five birdies to two for Morikawa to earn his spot in the playoff vs. Homa.

Meanwhile, Sergio Garcia scored a walk-off hole-in-one on the fourth playoff hole to beat Lee Westwood and advance in his group. A record eight playoffs needed to be held in order to finalize the 16 golfers from the field of 64 who will reach golf’s version of the Sweet 16 on Saturday.

Most of the favorites are gone, including No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who lost to Kevin Na after a mini-controversy on the 11th green.

“His [putt] lipped out and he had 6 inches and obviously it's good, but I hadn't said anything and he whacked it,” Na explained. “I froze there and looked at [caddie Kenny Harms] and I wasn't going to say that's a penalty, you're going to lose the hole. I was going to say, you know what, that was good anyway.”

Na went on to win 1-up on a rough day for the favorites. Just one of the top 20 seeds advanced — No. 3 Jon Rahm — as second-seed Justin Thomas, fourth-seed Morikawa, fifth-seed Bryson DeChambeau and sixth-seed Xander Schauffele all were sent home.

Cover photo of Collin Morikawa by Erich Schlegel, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo