Cal Golf: Max Homa To Play in The Match, Set For Feb. 26 Under the Lights

Max Homa's evolution as a star on the PGA Tour took another step with the news the former Cal star will participate in The Match, the latest made-for-TV golf event scheduled for Feb. 26 at West Palm Beach, Florida.

For the first time, the event will include women, with former Stanford star Rose Zhang, 20, and Lexi Thompson joining Homa and Rory McIlroy in the 12-hole competition. For the second time, The Match will be played under the lights, getting started at 6:30 p.m. ET.

The event will begin at 3:30 p.m. PT for West Coast viewers and will be televised on TNT, truTV and HLN. Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley will provide commentary.

Previous versions of the match have featured two-player team competition, but this will be an individual event. The mixed competition will use a skins format, with each hole will be worth a certain dollar amount that will go toward charity.

All players will use the same tees on the par 3s while the men and women will play from different tees on the eight remaining holes. Whichever golfer raises the most money will be crowned the champion.

Homa, 32, was part of a similar competition this past fall in the Netflix Cup and will arrive in Florida coming off the California portion of the PGA Tour.

The first Match, held in Las Vegas in 2018, featured Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Subsequent events have attracted a mix of PGA Tour stars along with professional athletes from other sports, including Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, Aaron Rodgers and Klay Thompson).

The world's seventh-ranked player, Homa begins defense of his title at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in La Jolla on Thursday.

A year ago at the Farmers tournament, Homa became the first player to participate in a "walk-and-talk" experiment where he engaged in conversation with the TV commentators while striding down the fairway.

The ploy garnered some negative reaction from purists, but Homa said he thinks golf needs to do more things like that to attract new viewers.

“I think that the walk-and-talk at least was kind of something risky and different, but I think it turned out quite good,” Homa said Tuesday during his pre-tournament news conference. “I’m sure there’s other variations that we could do, but just in general I think that’s kind of the direction at least, I’ll just speak for myself, I’d like to see golf go do. It’s not too crazy, it’s not too unbelievable to have people do something like that. I thought that it was nice.”

Homa said he embraces the innovation as a necessary part of the game's evolution in a changing world.

"I think we as players need to make it as a tour was to start to realize that we’re entertainers, we’re not just necessarily great golfers,” Homa argued. “So we need to entertain people and I think maybe getting out of your comfort zone here and there and doing something to give back to the viewership so that it gives them, one, a reason to watch and two, to keep watching.”

Cover photo of Max Homa by Adam Cairns, USA Today

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