Max Homa takes solo lead at the BMW Championship after an impressive run of birdies
On Friday, August 18, American Max Homa placed his name among the main contenders for the title of the BMW Championship. Homa played a spectacular second round that took him to the top of the leaderboard.
Homa had a good front nine, with four birdies and only one bogey, to leave with 32 strokes. But in the back nine, his performance was fabulous: Homa had two pars, bogey and six birdies, three of them in a row.
He tied his career low score record (62) and, in the process, set a new record for a round at Olympia Fields. However, Homa's performance could have been even better, as he missed a 53-foot putt on the 18th hole that would have represented him leaving the back nine with only 29 strokes.
That's how Max Homa finished a great round of eight under 70 (10 under 130 for the first 36 holes). With this result, he is now in first place on the leaderboard, two strokes ahead of Chris Kirk, with the day's play still to conclude.
Max Homa's stats clearly show why he performed at such a high level. Homa had a driving accuracy of more than 70%, is first in Greens In Regulation (GIR) with almost 89% and has the best Stroke Gained: Total of the entire field (7.32).
But, without a doubt, Max Homa has excelled with his putter. He is currently first in Stroke Gained: Putting with 4.32, first in Putts per GIR with only 1.38 and needed only 26 putts to complete his round.
Max Homa at the BMW Championship
The first day of the BMW Championship was solid for Max Homa, although without standing out too much. He managed a score of -2 that kept him among the contenders, as he was only three strokes behind the leader, Rory McIlroy.
It was a round in which Homa made only one bogey, but he was not so prolific in birdie production, as he only made three.
On Thursday, his putting was also at a high level, but he was much less effective in the Greens In Regulation section (just 61.11%). This led him to achieve too many pars to aspire to a similar result to this Friday.
This is the fifth time that Max Homa starts in the BMW Championship. He has done so uninterruptedly since 2019, the same year he started winning tournaments on the PGA Tour.
In the four previous participations, Homa has T23 last season as his best result. That was, precisely, the only occasion in which he has been able to advance to the TOUR Championship.
Homa is currently sixth in the FedEx Cup ranking, 935 points behind leader Jon Rahm. With a victory at the BMW Championship, Homa could move to the top of this list and face the TOUR Championship, the defining event of the postseason playoffs, in the most comfortable position.