Billy Horschel Snaps Back at Heckling Fan After Water Ball at Cognizant Classic

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Billy Horschel had just rattled off three birdies in five holes Friday at the Cognizant Classic. Then, on PGA National’s par-3 15th, his round took a drastic turn.

He quit on his tee shot and placed in the left rough adjacent to the hole, above a greenside bunker and right below the fans in the grandstand. So he took a drop, placed it on too good of a lie and “was worried about going underneath it,” and proceeded to fly the green, splashing his ball in the water.

What happened next, though, is what everyone’s talking about.

The fans heckled him, and Horschel snapped back.

“I guess you guys [inaudible] feel good about yourself with a comment like that, don't ya?” cameras caught Horschel saying.

After a final-round 73 that leaves him T53, Horschel elaborated.

Billy Ho responds to a chirping fan at @the_cognizant. 👀 pic.twitter.com/nMbWacD9FU
— Skratch (@Skratch) February 27, 2026

“Listen, everyone has been saying overseed, overseed. It wasn’t the first time I heard it today,” Horschel said, “but obviously in that situation, I hit a bad golf shot and they wanted to say it, and I just said–I don't know what I said. I think I said, ‘Who said that,’ or whatever.”

The spectators were referring to Horschel’s comments from earlier in the week. PGA National, one of the PGA Tour’s hardest courses for many years, has recently played more benignly. That can be attributed to overseeding the golf course, and when the course was catching strays on social media earlier this week, Horschel tweeted, “Unfortunately, not the [PGA] Tour’s fault. Owners of PGA National do it. Tour have tried to state why it shouldn’t be overseeded but end of the day it’s out of their hands.”

But Horschel, a native Floridian, has no animosity toward PGA National.

“A guy sort of said a couple more things and said I was bad-mouthing the golf course, and that couldn’t be the furthest from the truth,” the 39-year-old said. “I’ve praised this golf course for many, many years. If I didn’t like this golf course, I wouldn’t come here and play every year.”

He added: “I wanted to make sure I informed him on that. I said, ‘Maybe you should be more informed of the situation,’ and that was it.”

And the fan suffered consequences for his actions.

“The officers came up to me after I walked off 16 and said, ‘We kicked him out,’ and I said, ‘I didn't ask for him to be kicked out,’” Horschel said.

Fan behavior has become a hot topic across all sports in recent years. How does Horschel view the situation?

“Listen, everyone has a right to say things,” the eight-time Tour winner said. “I think there’s just a level of respect that—when somebody is trying to do their job—understand, we’re trying to do a job out here. Listen, we are really good golfers, and we can make the game look very easy, but at the end of the day, it is a job. A lot of us are playing for victories. A lot of us are playing for our cards. A lot of us are playing for many different things.”

So, following the brouhaha, Horschel went to the drop zone, eventually made a triple-bogey 6 and then added two more bogeys to his scorecard before his round ended.

His mishaps at the end didn’t come because of that spectator, though.

“A fan affecting me out on the golf course will never happen,” he said. “I affect myself enough.”

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