Billy Horschel plans to find the answer in the dirt by grinding hard during the off-season
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Billy Horschel is going to respond to his worst season since he won the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup in 2014 the only way he knows how.
"Practice, practice, practice,” the Ponte Vedra Beach resident said after missing his 10th cut in 23 starts this season at the RSM Classic, at the Sea Island Club. “I'll just be grinding away, trying to get better."
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Horschel shot 70-72 and missed the cut by four shots. He finished the regular season 90th on the FedEx Cup points list, failing to make the playoffs for the first time in 11 seasons, and fell further through FedEx Cup Fall, to 110th.
Since the former University of Florida All-American finished 16th in the FedEx Cup in 2013, Horschel had made the Tour Championship (reserved for the top 30) six times and never finished lower than 66th.
The seven-time PGA Tour winner was 21st on the points list last season when he captured his most recent title at The Memorial. But after a tie for seventh in the CJ Cup last fall, Horschel didn’t have another top 10 in a stroke-play event until he finished solo fourth in the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C.
Horschel tied for ninth in the Dell Technologies Match Play and tied for 13th in the 3M Championship. But that wasn’t enough to get him among the top 70 to reach the playoffs under the revamped format.
Billy Horschel found good results in Europe
Horschel didn't take much of a break. He went to Europe and posted three promising performances, tying for 20th in France, for 18th in the BMW PGA and for 45th in the Irish Open, then returned home to help his wife Brittany with the launch of the Horschel Family Foundation, which was announced on Oct. 24.
Horschel has also been working on modifying his irons to give him a higher trajectory and avoid misses to the left. He reduced the length of his iron shafts, flattened his lie angles and had a lighter shaft installed.
Horschel hit 78 percent of his fairways and 75 percent of his greens in two rounds at Sea Island, well above his season average. But he tied for 122nd in the field of 156 with 31.5 putts per round.
He’s been playing golf long enough to know that the sports giveth and it taketh away and departed Sea Island in a good frame of mind that the equipment changes and his work with Todd Anderson, the director of instruction at the TPC Sawgrass, will pay off over the break.
Titleist Tour rep J.J. Van Wezenbeeck said lightening the weight of Horschel’s irons improved his feel.
“We found that removing 10 grams from the shaft let him feel the head a little bit more,” Van Wezenbeeck told pgatour.com. “With him and his coach, they were able to deliver the loft more consistently.”
"It's pretty close,” Horschel said. “Just try to tighten things up a little bit. Since July we've been headed in the right direction. So it's just trying to be a little more consistent day in and day out.”
Horschel will play in Grant Thornton
But just when Horschel started to feel comfortable about his ball-striking, his putting deserted him.
“The putter was cold this week. That didn't help a lot,” he said. “We hit a lot of good shots that we thought were going to turn out very well and they didn't. It's just one of those weeks, unfortunately, where it [ball-striking] wasn't that bad. It was better than what the score shows."
Horschel has one off-season event planned, partnering with Andrea Lee in the Grant Thornton Invitational, a mixed-team event in Naples Dec. 7-10.
Beyond that, it will be a work in process until next season.
“I played decent in Europe … it’s close,” he said. “Just get a little more consistent, day in and day out.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Billy Horschel's off-season plan: 'Practice, practice, practice'
