CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Quail Hollow Club may be a big, brawny golf course with firm greens and a finishing stretch infamous enough to earn its own moniker, but it was a short stroke that Max Homa called his toughest shot of the day.

Of course, context played a part in his assessment.

It’s one thing to sink a flat 6-footer on a practice green. It’s another to successfully stroke one that’s running down a steep slope, especially when it’s for par on one of the course’s easiest holes and you’re trying to close out your first PGA TOUR title. Oh, and you’ve been thinking about it for the last hour.

Max Homa had a three-shot lead when play was suspended Sunday at the Wells Fargo Championship. He’d taken the safe route on the drivable 14th, but then pulled his wedge shot and watched it bounce off the green and into the rough. His chip shot ran 6 feet past the hole moments before Quail Hollow was pelted by a heavy downpour.

Homa took one last look at the putt before being evacuated to the clubhouse. He was prepared for a delay. He’d endured two the previous day. His coach, Les Johnson, texted him Sunday morning and said, “There's going to be adversity. There might be a delay. Just prepare yourself.”

Homa described the hour-long wait as “brutal.”

“That wait was actually pretty bad,” he said. “That was tough. That's when you've got to grow up a little bit.”

Related: Champion's Wall | Homa proves resilient in road to winner's circle | Winner's Bag | Homa's final-round highlights

He called his fiancée and his coach during the delay. He told them he might throw up (he didn’t). He showed great restraint by staying off Twitter and not looking at a leaderboard. He didn’t know where he stood until he asked his caddie, Joe Greiner, as they prepared to return to the course.

Homa thought he needed the 6-footer to stay in the lead. Then he learned that he was three shots ahead.

“I knew in the back of my mind that if I make that putt, I win this golf tournament,” Homa said. “When I made that putt, I knew I was in a good spot both in the tournament but also mentally to be able to do that.”

He birdied the next hole before cautiously navigating Quail Hollow’s water-lined closing holes. He played that trio in 1 over to win by three shots over Joel Dahmen. It was Homa’s first PGA TOUR win, moving him to 35th in the FedExCup. It came less than two years later after a PGA TOUR season in which he earned less than $20,000.

Hom put on an impressive putting display, leading the field in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week (+9.89) and the final round (+4.11). He didn’t make any putts outside 15 feet in the final round, but he gained strokes by being almost flawless from inside that mark. He was 4 for 5 from both 5-7 feet and 10-15 feet. His hands were steady under the Sunday nerves.

“I putted awesome this whole week,” Homa said, “and I stood up on that putt and we had a great read, and it was great to see it go in because I think I knew my golf game was good enough to do this, (but) there's a lot of doubts because when you haven't been here.”

He erased all those doubts with a rock-solid showing on Sunday.