6 minute read
How on Earth?
Billy Horschel IS ON THE CUSP OF A TRAILBLAZING FEAT THAT WASN’T EVEN ON HIS RADAR AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR
BY JOHN HUGGAN
OR BILLY HORSCHEL, 2021 has so far been a year of goals, real, unimagined and, in the case of a spot on the American Ryder Cup team, unfulfi lled. ▶ Aside from being genuinely “ticked off ” by his Whistling Straits snub, he can’t otherwise complain, not after capturing the WGC-Dell Technologies Match-Play in March and the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in September. ▶ Still, the 34-year-old Floridian has much to play for before 2022 dawns. One thing in particular appeals to him: second on the European Tour’s season-long Race to Dubai points list, Horschel has ambitions to become the fi rst American to break that Old World tape.
There’s also a renewed challenge from his caddie, Mark Fulcher, to further sharpen Horschel’s focus.
“I’ll be honest, at the beginning of the year, the Race to Dubai wasn’t one of my goals,” said Horschel, who trailed Open champion Collin Morikawa by 236.2 points heading into the final three events of the European Tour season, including the season-deciding Dubai doubleheader at Jumeirah Golf Estates. “But after playing well in the WGC events and playing decent in the majors, that changed. I was top five going to Wentworth. I knew if I had a good week there, I would jump up.
“So now there are two goals for the rest of this year. Win the Race to Dubai, which is the big one for me. Before Wentworth, Fooch said he wanted me to be top 20 in the world by the end of the year. I’m 18th now (20th at press time), so he’s moved the finishing line. He wants to see if we can get to the top 10 by Dec. 31.”
Still, for all his success this year (he finished T-9 in the PGA Tour’s 2021 FedEx Cup standings), Horschel is a man harbouring regrets. Like just about everyone else with even a passing interest in golf, he watched as the American side demolished their European counterparts at Whistling Straits last week. And he did so with mixed feelings. On one hand, he was delighted to see his friends and compatriots succeed where other U.S. teams had so often failed. On the other, he knew that, had his midseason form been a bit better, he
could have been one of the 12 making history with a record-breaking 19-9 margin of victory.
“All 12 Americans played really great,” he said. “And the Europeans were just a little off. Rory [McIlroy] was a little off. Lee [Westwood] was a little off. Several of the guys were a little off. We saw shots that, historically, Europeans haven’t been hitting in a foursomes format. I think that’s what it comes down to. But it was great to see the Americans win. I didn’t want to see another year where we get questioned about why haven’t we won and why players don’t care. That ticks me off. I haven’t been part of a Ryder Cup, but it irks me when I hear that the U.S. players don’t care. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Everybody who has played for the last two decades, at least those I’ve come across, cared tremendously about it.”
All of which is going to make qualification for the next Ryder Cup no easy task for any of the eligible Americans. Golf is a fickle sport and two years is a long time. Who would have thought, for example, that Rickie Fowler would be absent from the Ryder Cup? So it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if a number of those who played at Whistling Straits don’t make it to Italy for the re-match in 2023. Which renders talk of an era of American domination more than a little premature, at least in Horschel’s mind.
▶ one versus two Collin Morikawa and Billy Horschel read the eighth green during the final round of the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship in February. They’re set to go toe-to-toe again on Earth at Jumeirah Golf Estates this month.
▶ yes boss Billy Horschel waits to play his tee shot on the second hole with his caddie Mark Fulcher during the final round of The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on The Old Course last month.
“Everyone is a little wishful on that,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s not going to happen, but in 2016, we won at Hazeltine and everyone thought we had figured out how to win the Ryder Cup. Then we went over to France and got our butts kicked. One thing to our advantage is we do have a good young group of core players who, more than likely, are going to play a lot more Ryder Cups over the next 10, 15 years. In contrast, the Europeans are in a transition mode with Westwood and [Ian] Poulter probably playing their last Ryder Cups. You’ve still got Sergio García and I would expect Justin Rose to be on another Ryder Cup team. But they are in their early 40s. So yes, it does look like it could be a thing of dominance for next few years. But things on paper don’t always equal winning Ryder Cups. It’s sort of a ‘waitand-see what happens’ situation.”
Perhaps heightening Horschel’s angst is that he already knows the unique pleasure that comes with winning as part of a national team. In 2007, alongside the likes of Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Chris Kirk, Colt Knost, Kyle Stanley and Webb Simpson, he was part of the winning U.S. Walker Cup team at Royal County Down in Northern Ireland. He was also involved in a mild controversy when Rory McIlroy, the undoubted star of the Great Britain & Ireland side, took exception to some of Horschel’s behaviour. The pair played each other twice in singles, each recording a victory
“I went into that Walker Cup as an emotional guy, more of a cheerleader and more rambunctious,” Horschel said. “I was the Sergio Garcia of the American team back then. And it showed. Rory and I have joked about it, even recently when we played together at Caves Valley in the BMW Championship. We were young back then and we both did and said some dumb things. But that’s what you do when you’re 18, 20 years old. He and I also agreed that we wish we each still had that little bit of naïve kind of mindset. Playing professional golf, you get knocked down sometimes, so we both wish we still had the cockiness that makes you feel like you can take on the world and defeat it.”
Right now, Horschel doesn’t have to achieve that lofty goal. Not quite. But beating everyone on the European Tour would be a nice start down that road. The race is on.
