Max Homa is ready to be known for more than just being golf’s ‘Twitter guy’

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Max Homa was sitting on a plane, flying back to Arizona from the RSM Classic in Sea Island, Georgia, on Nov. 19, when he started to think about how to get better. It was his 31st birthday, and earlier in the day, he missed the cut by 3 strokes. Getting into his own head and dissecting his game on the way home has become standard operating procedure for Homa after tournaments he doesn’t win.

As he flew cross-country, Homa wasn’t just sitting 35,000 feet over the terra firma — he started to look at his career from above.

Below, he saw a player who has three wins on the PGA Tour and is better known by some for his hilarious tweets. Perhaps more importantly, he saw a man who is finally in a good place physically and mentally.

Homa, who has 313,000 Twitter followers and has become a social media phenomenon for his witty humor, swing roasts and banter with friends and fellow pros like Joel Dahmen and Talor Gooch, didn’t want to waste that progress.

He grew up thinking golfers hit their prime in their 30s, even though that notion has been challenged the past couple of years. Five of the seven most recent major winners were younger than 30, including a pair by 24-year-old Collin Morikawa. Homa watched them win, play in Ryder Cups, sit atop the Official World Golf Ranking and money lists. He was inspired to get to those heights himself.

This, Homa contemplated on that flight, was the time to push his limits to see how far it could go.

Last February, he won the Genesis Invitational at Riviera and was even handed the trophy by the tournament host — Tiger Woods. Even though it was his third win on tour, before that moment, Homa didn’t think he was good enough, didn’t think he could do the whole professional golfer thing.

In 2017, he made just two cuts the…