Eleven months ago, after the first round of the Memorial Tournament, Billy Horschel stood before the press and fought back tears as he spoke about his lack of confidence.
He had just shot a 12-over 84, which served as a metaphor for his struggles throughout the 2023 season. Horschel missed the cut 10 times last year and missed the FedEx Cup playoffs.
That means Horschel doesn’t meet the eligibility requirements to compete in this week’s RBC Heritage — the fifth signature event of the 2024 season — but he still wanted to compete because he knew his play was trending in the right direction.
There he competed in the Corales Puntacana Championship, an all-competition tournament held in the Dominican Republic.
The decision paid off.
Horschel started the final round three strokes behind Wesley Bryan but stormed past Bryan and everyone else to win by two strokes. The former Florida Gator shot a course-record-tying 9-under 63 to win on the PGA Tour for the first time since the 2022 Memorial.
“The sport of golf is very fickle, and I think if you give it your all, you can get everything you want,” Horschel said after Sunday’s win.
“But I knew from 14 years, and 13 years before that on the PGA Tour, that I had the ability, I knew I had the talent. I just had to keep working hard, doing the right things and continuing to have faith that good things would come to the fore one day.”
Though the win didn’t come against some of the PGA Tour’s elite players, including Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark and Rory McIlroy, Horschel still values the win, and the fact that he came out on top against the rest of the field.
“There are so many tournaments on the PGA Tour that it’s hard to get justice in every single one, and the events with the opposing field are very important for a lot of players who are coming up the ranks,” Horschel explained.
“You look at Tony Finau, you look at Viktor Hovlan winning in Puerto Rico, you look at Matt Wallace winning. So this is another chance to play, another chance to become a better player, another chance to win on the PGA Tour. These events are very important to the PGA Tour in terms of the growth and development of PGA Tour players.”
With his win in the Dominican Republic, Horschel has risen from 76th to 45th in the FedEx Cup standings, a win that certainly means a lot as the top 70 players will qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
But Horschel wouldn’t have been able to get the job done without his mental toughness and ability to handle late pressure.
“I don’t like to talk about myself, but growing up and pitching, I always wanted the ball. I always wanted to be the guy that went out there and got the winning run. I always wanted to carry the ball,” Horschel explained.
“I think as I’ve grown up and have that mindset, I’ve started to like leading. I like being in the spotlight. I like having everything focused on me. I know that if I make a mistake, it’s my fault and I’m the one in control of my destiny. I’ve always played really well when I’ve been close to leading and I showed a little bit of that today.”
Horschel made five birdies in his first nine holes to vault himself to the top of the leaderboard midway through his round, and like always, he never faltered late in the round, instead catching momentum, making an eagle on the par-5 12th to take a two-stroke lead with six holes to go and never relinquishing it.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf articles, check him out @_PlayingThrough. You can also follow him on Twitter at @jack_milko.
