Max Homa Supports PGA Tour Borrowing ‘Brilliant’ No-Cut Aspect of LIV Golf Model

It’s no surprise that Max Homa stands by the changes coming to the PGA Tour in 2024. As a member of the 2023 Player Advisory Council, an active voice on social media, and a self-proclaimed fan of the sport, Homa has taken a front seat in pushing the Tour to implement such amendments. 

During a press conference on Wednesday morning, Homa spoke for four straight minutes to commend the PGA Tour’s plan, which will reduce fields and potentially eliminate the 36-hole cut for the “designated” events in 2024. 

“I love the new changes. I could rant on this for awhile, which I might,” Homa said.

After the news broke, both professional golfers and golf fans took to social media to react to the changes. Many pointed out that the PGA Tour’s new structure resembled that of another tour: The Saudi-backed LIV Golf league. Later on Wednesday evening, Homa responded to those very comments. 

After the Arnold Palmer Invitational Pro-Am, the six-time PGA Tour winner told Sports Illustrated that although he pushed for the preservation of the 36-hole cut, he sees value in the model that LIV chose to adopt. 

LIV Golf’s regular season consists of 14 three-day events with small 48-man fields and no cuts.

“Although it does sound like LIV, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing,” Homa said of the PGA Tour’s decision to explore the no-cut model for 2024’s “designated” events. “That’s something that I think they have done which is quite brilliant. They have a guaranteed product and you know who’s going to be there for the three days they play, so imitation is the sincerest form of…what is the saying? Flattery. That’s not bad. 

“There are some things that they do that will end up being great. They got to make a model from scratch. I think that they did some things well. I don’t love all of it, just like I’m sure they don’t love all of what we do, that’s why they left. It’s not a bad thing that we kind of see eye-to-eye on that.”

Although the PGA Tour already puts on a handful of no-cut events in its current schedule, Homa recognizes that adding more tournaments with guaranteed strong fields for all four days will benefit both fans and sponsors. 

“I was actually one of the voices—I did want a cut. I appreciate the cut,” he said. “But where I do come around on that though, is the business men and women who have helped shape this idea of no-cut, they put forth the idea that, if you’re going to sell this product to sponsors and they’re putting up significantly more money, they want some kind of guarantee. This is business for the Tour, we get to just go play golf.

“This is not my world, but they want to know that they can sell tickets to know for a fact who is going to be there. And as much as I would say, of course, the top players should be making the most cuts and they will be making the most cuts, if you start to make it the 70 best players every week, you’re going to start weeding out some of the top players week in and week out, because it’s going to be tougher competition. It’s not a normal PGA Tour event. As much as I am a fan of the cut, and I was kind of riding for one, I completely understand their position on this now.”

Homa has been a leading voice amid the PGA Tour’s structural evolution, but he has also been active in another effort: the improvement of golf’s TV broadcast. The Cal Berkley product was the first player to get mic’d up by CBS for the new live “walk and talk” segment. 

“I had a conversation with Andy Pazder [the Chief Tournaments & Competitions Officer at the PGA Tour] about this a couple months ago and then we workshopped some ideas and then we had to go to CBS to figure out what was even reasonable,” Homa said. “They did a tremendous job of using the technology the right way.”

“I talk to them about this stuff—as a fan of golf—everybody who watches golf has ideas of what they could do a little bit differently, but some of them aren’t feasible that we think might be. They were very kind to listen and put some things into place that we’ve talked about.”

Homa’s work on the PGA Tour’s television product is not done yet. He has more ideas for the broadcast, including a post-produced mic’d up segment for players who don’t necessarily want the pressure of live footage. 

“There are some other things I think they can do. I have this idea that I’d like them to try: Mic up players but post-produce it. That player then doesn’t have to worry about saying a bad word and then you’ll get the best hits from the round, and maybe the best caddie-player convos, and you can post-produce it and make a six minute video and put it out during the broadcast,” Homa said.