Next week is a win-win situation for Billy Horschel.
Either Horschel qualifies for the FedExCup Playoffs and plays in the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, or he takes his wife and three children to the Bahamas so they may unwind in the sun and surf at the Abaco Club.
The vacation may have to wait, based on how he’s performing at the Wyndham Championship. Horschel shot a career-low 62 on Friday at Sedgefield Country Club, moving him into sole possession of the second place, one stroke behind Russell Henley.
A round like that was necessary for Horschel to climb ahead in the projected FedExCup rankings and maybe qualify for the Playoffs. He needed a two-way tie for second place or better when he started the week in 116th place. With two rounds left, he has moved up 51 positions to position 65.
Highlights of Friday were a closing stretch of three straight birdies and a 56-degree wedge Horschel hit at the eighth hole for an eagle. His 8 under round was his sixth consecutive competition round below par and his ninth in his previous 12.
Not bad for a man who struggled emotionally earlier this year and shot an opening round of 84 in defending his championship at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday.
“This has been well-documented and has been discussed extensively; for me, this year has been really difficult. However, since that 84 at Memorial and the subsequent media conference, the game has been moving in the correct direction.” Horschel said.
There have been several encouraging developments recently, including a lot more confidence in my ability to strike the golf ball, which has been the main problem all year. The results haven’t indicated that until the past week (a tie for 13th at the 3M Open) and so far this week.
“I’m eager to see where my game goes. In this round of golf, we still have a long way to go before we are back where I would like to be, but at least we are moving forward now that we have momentum,” he said.
Horschel credited his irons’ new alignment with contributing to some of the turnarounds. After using the GEARS 3D technology in Los Angeles on Tuesday during U.S. Open week, he found that all of the lie angles needed to be flattened since they were 2 to 3 degrees too upright.
Horschel claimed that nobody was to blame for the difference and speculated that the data may have been incorrect for a number of years. He discovered an old spreadsheet from his time with Ping and discovered the numbers didn’t match those that Titleist had after the lies had been altered.
Therefore, it was preventing me from making the cut I wanted to. Since everything Todd (Anderson, his teacher) and I have been doing in our swing has been the proper thing, I felt quite confident after that.
And then we recently discovered that the club will stay in front of me better if I can keep it shorter and wider. Resuming a little portion of what we used to do in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In 2014, Horschel won the FedExCup.
