Max Homa Responds To Critics After Slow Play Video

Max Homa says he plans on changing his routine on the greens after a video of him taking more than 50 seconds to line up and hit a short putt at the WGC Match Play went viral on social media.

The American uses the popular AimPoint method that involves using your feet to feel the slope and then your fingers to determine the start point, and was seen repeatedly straddling his line in the video, before cameras cut to an exasperated-looking Mackenzie Hughes.

Homa isn’t known for being a slow player and responded to the original tweet at the time, acknowledging it wasn’t a great look and saying he was going to “work on speeding this process up." He was asked about the incident ahead of his fourth appearance at The Masters.

"I'm going to change up the fact that I turn around a bunch," Homa said. "I noticed I was walking on my own line. I understand that it's just not great to look at, and in the grand scheme of things, I'd like to just make it look like I'm going faster. But if you have somebody go 360 around the hole, it's not fast, but you're used to seeing it. 

"I'm going to change it just for me because I noticed how much I'm stepping around the hole, and I don't love that I do that. I went and looked at my ShotLink timings, and I am 35 seconds average on putting. That video is 52 seconds, so that's 17 seconds over. So I think it's really easy to jump on that as being incredibly slow when I don't think that that was incredibly slow.

"For me looking at that video, I understand this is an entertainment product. I'd like it not to feel like you're watching paint dry, and it looked like, when I watched it, it was watching paint dry. Would have been nice if NBC would have clicked away for ten seconds and not made me look awful.

"For a second I was thinking, ‘Man, am I slow on the greens?’ Because I've never considered myself a slow player. I don't have very many timings a year. It's nice that we have the ability to go back and check that, and I saw that I'm not. That made me feel better about at least the pace."

Homa is out in one of Thursday's featured groups at The Masters, teeing off alongside defending champion Scottie Scheffler and amateur Sam Bennett at 1.36pm local time (6.36pm BST).