Billy and Brittany Horschel focus on mental health, military, food insecurity with foundation

It’s personal for Billy and Brittany Horschel. 

The seven-time PGA Tour winner and his wife, who reside in Ponte Vedra Beach, announced the formation of the Horschel Family Foundation on Tuesday at the PGA Tour’s Global Home, with the mission of investing in communities by assisting charities related to mental health, addiction, food insecurity and the military.

“The time was right,” said Brittany Horschel, a Nease graduate who met her husband when they were on the University of Florida golf teams.

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And she will bring her own perspective to the foundation and the people it will impact. Brittany Horschel has been sober for seven years after admitting her alcoholism in 2016 and said she’s eager to help others and their families face the obstacles she and her husband overcame.

“You can’t replace authenticity,” she said after the news conference. “I know from experience, from my vision, how I can help people from struggling, being depressed, having an addiction problem and get them help.”

Billy Horschel said addiction impacts entire families and he can share his own experience in helping his wife get the help she needed.

“I wasn’t a great husband,” he said. “I wasn’t communicating well. I didn’t do the things that could have helped her with the issue she had, so it was a two-way street. I’ll try and help people on this from my side.”

Brittany Horschel said addiction “is a family disease.”

“It affects everyone in the family, whether you know it or not,” she said. “But if Billy had not been supportive of me, I would not have succeeded.”

PAR program is the start

The first step for the Horschel Family Foundation is the launching of the PAR Program (Privacy, Access and Resources) which will help remove barriers that prevent individuals from seeking help for mental illness or addiction.

The plan is to collaborate with the PGA Tour and local mental health and addiction specialists “to provide pathways for healing.”

“It’s all about creating a bridge … to reach out and say, ‘hey, I’m having a problem,” Brittany Horschel said. “’I think I need help and I’m not comfortable going to [a company’s human resources department] right now.’”

The other legs of the foundation are areas where Horschel has already made an impact. He has been an avid supporter of Feeding Northeast Florida, sponsors American Junior Golf Association and Advocates Professional Golf Association tournaments and has worked with K9s for Warriors.

Brittany Horschel wants to have her touch

Billy Horschel is still playing golf on a full-time basis and at the age of 36 is in the prime of his career.

Brittany Horschel is ready to make the foundation a full-time endeavor.

“I want to be super-involved in it,” she said “I want to have my touches on it. I want to have the personal relationships and do a lot of the work. Our youngest son is four so and I felt like now is the time.”

The Horschel Family Foundation is the latest on a list of First Coast and Golden Isles PGA Tour players who have created foundations to help various causes, such as the Jim and Tabitha Furyk Foundation, the Len Mattiace Foundation, the Paul and Michelle Tesori Family Foundation and the Davis Love Foundation.

“There are a lot of examples of people to look up to,” Billy Horschel said.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who attended the news conference, said he's continually proud of how Tour players use their success as leverage for giving back.

“So many players are making a difference in their own community,” Monahan said. “They find the areas they want to make a difference in, apply their time and treasure … it’s exceptional.”

DP World Tour offers memberships

The DP World Tour is returning a favor to the PGA Tour.

As part of the alliance between the two Tours that began in 2022, the top 10 players on the final Race to Dubai standings received PGA Tour cards for the next season, if not otherwise eligible.

The DP World Tour is now awarding PGA Tour players who finish between No. 126 and 200 on the final FedEx Cup points list membership on the DP World Tour, where they can play overseas instead of trying to get into PGA Tour events with weaker fields, on the Korn Ferry Tour.

There's a catch: only five players can get into DP World Tour events on a given week. The players who are highest on the points list will get priority.

There are three tournaments left on the PGA Tour's "FedEx Cup Fall," ending with the RSM Classic at the Sea Island Club Nov. 14-17. Players who finished outside the top 70 who qualified for the FedEx Cup playoffs had seven fall stops to improve their status and stay within the top 125 to keep full-time status on the Tour in 2024.

Among the past PGA Tour winners outside the top 125 this week are JU graduate Russell Knox, 2018 Players champion Webb Simpson, and past PGA champions Jason Dufner and Jimmy Walker.

Tours are dark this week

The PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions are off this week, leaving the schedule entirely to the LPGA in Malaysia and the DP World Tour in Qatar.

The Tour returns Nov. 2-5 with the World Wide Technologies Championship at Los Cabos, Mexico. The PGA Tour Champions will play the second leg of the Schwab Cup playoffs Nov. 3-5 with the TimberTech Championship at the Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton.

Gooch makes good

Talor Gooch made $9,060,980 in 116 tournaments over five seasons on the PGA Tour, and that includes a first-place check from winning the 2021 RSM Classic.

Gooch has done just a bit better on the LIV Golf League. In 20 starts on LIV Golf, he has made $45,694,512, fueled by three victories.

LPGA TOUR

Event: Maybank Championship, Wednesday-Saturday, Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club, Malaysia.

At stake: $3 million purse ($450,000 to the winner).

Defending champion: First-year event.

TV: Golf Channel (Wednesday-Friday, 10 p.m.-3 a.m.; Saturday, 11 p.m.-4 a.m.).

Area players entered: None.

Notable: The LPGA continues its Asian swing, with a trip to Japan next week. The Tour returns to the U.S. with The Annika in Belleaire.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel, wife Brittany launch family foundation