Cal Golf: Max Homa Finishes Strong to Stay Alive at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Cal grad Max Homa continued a solid season on the PGA Tour Friday with a second-round score of 70 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, easily advancing to the weekend’s action.
Homa, 30, begins play Saturday tied for 15th place after shooting five-under par 139 through the first two rounds. He trails leader Jordan Spieth by seven strokes.
Things didn’t go as well for two other former Cal golfers playing Pebble Beach this week.
Brandon Hagy, who was tied for 11th place after shooting a five-under 67 on Thursday, blew up to a 78 on Friday and missed the cut with a two-round score of one-over 145.
Michael Kim, who carded a 71 in the first round, shot a two-over 74 on Friday and also finished at 145. Hagy and Kim both missed the cut by two strokes.
The most prolific former Cal golfer, 2020 PGA champion Collin Morikawa, is not playing this week.
Spieth put together rounds of 65 and 65 to hold the second-round lead while Daniel Berger, who shot a 66 on Friday, is one stroke back at 11 under. Henrik Norlander is at 10 under and Patrick Cantlay, who set a Pebble course record of 62 on Thursday, is part of a three-way tie for fourth at minus nine.
Homa, a 2013 Cal grad, finished strong Friday to assure himself a spot on the schedule this weekend. He birdied the 13th, 14th and 16th holes to climb the leaderboard. His start to the second round was a bit shaky, with bogeys on the first, fourth and 10th holes against birdies on Nos. 2 and 3.
Coupled with his first-round score of 69, Homa sits in a 10-way tie for 15th.
Homa finished in a tie for 14th at Pebble Beach a year ago and shared 10th at the event in 2019.
This is the seventh time in 10 events this season that Homa has made the cut, and the fifth tournament in a row he has done so. He has three top-25 finishes, highlighted by a 12th-place tie at the Mayakoba Golf Classic.
Homa has one career PGA Tour win, at the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship.
Hagy, 29 and a 2014 graduate of the Haas School of Business, still is searching for his first victory on the PGA Tour after 79 starts. His 2018 season was cut short by a wrist injury and he followed that with back issues in 2019.
He delivered an encouraging start here Thursday with six birdies and just one bogey to sit in an 11-player logjam for 11th place.
But things went awry almost from the start in the second round. He had bogeys on Nos. 3, 4 and 6 before posting his lone birdie of the day on No. 7. The back nine was tougher still, with bogeys on the 10th, 12th, 15th and 17th.
Kim, a 27-year-old who left Cal to turn pro in 2013, has one career victory on the PGA Tour, th 2018 John Deere Classic, where he shot a remarkable 27-under par.
But he failed to make the cut Friday for the ninth time in 12 tournament this season, on the heels of reaching the weekend just five times in 41 starts in 2019 and ’20.
Kim assembled back-to-back birdies on Nos. 14 and 15, but he’d already dug himself a hole with three bogeys and when he had another on No. 17 his chances to advance were done.
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Cover photo of Max Homa by Orlando Ramirez, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo