CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Max Homa drove down Magnolia Lane last month, fearing it could be his last time on that hallowed road.

It takes a lot of maddening range sessions, no-show results and strategic dead ends to push a high-level athlete to question whether they have what it takes to get back to where they’ve been. But with more self-awareness than most and a tendency to overthink, Homa had fallen far enough to brush off any bravado that would have sugarcoated his situation.

This might be my last Masters. That thought ran through his head and it wasn’t unfounded.

Sure, he had finished in a tie for third at the Masters the year before. That was supposed to be the start of Homa’s next career leap. Yet all that felt so far away as he stepped back on the fairways of Augusta National, a shell of who he was before, without a made cut in an event with one since the previous summer’s The Open Championship.

Homa can admit that now because he sees a path back. A path that leads to great golf, fewer frantic calls with his swing coach and more Masters appearances. A path that stacks rounds like Friday’s at the PGA Championship until Homa returns to where he believes his talent and hard work warrant: a place among the best players in the world.

Homa shot 7-under 64 in the second round at Quail Hollow Club to vault firmly into contention at this week’s PGA Championship. It was a declaration that Homa is on his way back. He might not immediately return to who he was when he rattled off TOUR wins and stared at the Ryder Cup. But returning to that version of himself is back on the table, far from a sure thing a month ago, spurred on by self-prescribed swing changes during a revelatory range session three weeks ago.

“It's been difficult because I felt like I was so broken, and whatever the swing change was going to be was going to be some grand thing, like something I've never done before,” Homa said.

The solution, it turns out, was simple. As Homa delved deeper and deeper into the abyss of pro golf, stacking missed cuts in rapid succession to close 2024 and begin the new year, he relied heavily on his swing coaches – first Mark Blackburn, then John Scott Rattan – to help solve the issues. Homa was involved in finding a way forward, but he was deferential to their ideas and their feedback. After all, they are the experts. Homa described them as “brilliant,” two of the top coaches in the game. They know the golf swing better than Homa. But did they know Homa’s better than Homa?

Homa made the realization during a range session back home in Arizona, in which he and Rattan were repeatedly banging their heads against the wall trying to find a solution. Without any clear direction, Homa stopped to have an honest conversation with Rattan.

“It's going to hopefully be one of those things I remember,” Homa said. “‘I said, I think I should swing it like this.’ And he said, ‘Okay, show me.’ And I showed him. And he said, ‘Okay, let's mold off of that, let's make that the model.’

“It was immediately like, we're going to do that.”

The new swing, in reality, is actually an old one – at least in how it feels. Homa said it closely resembles how he felt in 2022 and ‘23, the timeframe he believes he swung it best. Returning to the familiar sparked confidence, moving away from what felt ‘foreign’ over the last 12-ish months to something that just felt natural.

“It feels more like me,” Homa said.

In the weeks since, it’s been a scramble to readjust around the new North Star of his swing. He worked with Cobra to change his driver to fit the characteristics of his new move. He’s hit countless range balls to drill the new feels into place. On nearly every tee box Friday, Homa practiced the takeaway of his swing several times before stepping up to the ball.

He’s fixing it on the fly, but it’s working.

Homa gained strokes off the tee at last week’s Truist Championship and is among the top five in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee through two rounds of the PGA Championship.

It is needed validation that this path is indeed the best way forward. Over the last several months, Homa had shown up to tournaments believing he had the fix, only to quickly find out it wasn’t going to hold up during competition. At the WM Phoenix Open, he said he drove it as good as he ever had during the practice rounds, then shot 76 in the first round to play himself out of the tournament. He shot 76-75 to miss the cut the next week at The Genesis Invitational. Then he shot 81 in the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and 79 in the first round of THE PLAYERS Championship, ending those weeks before they started, too. After missing the cut at THE PLAYERS, Homa told PGATOUR.COM he believed he could be the best player in the world but was going “the complete opposite direction.”

“It's hard to care this much about something and just not get anything out of it,” he said. “... It's like you're in a very toxic relationship. I might be the toxic one, but it's still toxic."

In every instance, his swing would speed up during competition, throwing off all the feels he had work so hard to cultivate. “It just was a little bit of mental with a lack of confidence mixed with a golf swing that wasn't super repeatable,” Homa said.

It’s early, but this swing has proven to be sustainable. Homa’s ballspeed is up around 5 mph this week, a sign of his increased comfort. It proved fruitful on Friday when Homa hit his tee shot within two feet on the drivable par-4 14th.

“I toed it like the perfect amount,” Homa said, admitting he was attempting to hit the green but wasn’t trying to take it as close to the hazard as he did.

Homa added birdies on 15 and 18 to turn in 6-under 30. The lone bogey he made for the day at the fourth hole was offset by birdies at Nos. 3 and 6.

"Everybody's telling him he's close for months now and he's got to tell himself that. A round like today is the type of round that he's going to take to heart and hopefully realize that he is back," Homa's new caddie Bill Harke said. Homa hired Harke off a recommendation from Jim 'Bones' Mackay.

The last year has been filled with learning lessons. They will prove to be particularly valuable if Homa can fully pull himself out of this rut. A run this weekend at Quail Hollow, a venue he’s already won at before, would do that in spades.

“As I started to feel really good, I knew I was going to come in here and swing it nicely,” Homa said. “I just needed to find some comfort. So this place does that for me.”