Billy Horschel Calls Out 'Hypocrites' in LIV Golf, Says They Should Stay There
NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — When Billy Horschel walked into the media center for the Genesis Scottish Open on Tuesday, he wanted to get something off his chest.
For weeks, last month's Memorial Tournament champion has been on the boil waiting to provide his thoughts on players that have jumped to LIV Golf.
Since his win in Dublin, Ohio, the world of professional golf has seen LIV Golf events take place in London and Portland with $50 million doled out to fields of 48 at each.
Players such as Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Abraham Ancer, Pat Perez, Paul Casey and Matthew Wolff have all joined LIV.
And on Monday, suspensions imposed on former DP World members that have played in LIV events were temporarily stayed through an administrative hearing.
"I believe they made their bed," Horschel said. "They decided to go play a tour and they should go play that tour. They shouldn't be coming back over here to play the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour.”
Horschel, 35, a member of both tours and winner of the DP World Tour's flagship event last year, the BMW PGA Championship, can’t understand why players who said they want to play less would ultimately play more if they played several events on either Tour along with their LIV obligations.
“Just coming to play the big events on the DP World Tour, yeah, that helps but that's not supporting the DP World Tour,” Horschel said of the player argument that they want to support the DP World Tour. “Go play something that's not a Rolex Series Event. Go play something that's not in the Middle East. That's more important to the DP World Tour and the growth of the Tour and giving back to the Tour and helping these guys in the financial sense, making sure that financially they are getting the rewards that they deserve over here.”
Horschel doesn’t fault the LIV defectors for leaving, but questions one of their reasons being that they were not heard by the PGA Tour commissioner. He also suggests that taking shots at the commissioner is equal to taking shots at the individual members as well.
“Leave us alone, honestly,” Horschel said. “There are a lot of guys that are hypocrites that are not telling the truth and lying about some things that I just can't stand to sit here anymore and be diplomatic anymore about it as I have been in the past. “
In a shot across the bow at Pat Perez, which last week at the LIV event in Portland talked about his inability to leave the first FedEx Cup playoff event to be present for his son’s birth, Horschel had a response.
“If you want to play better or you want to play more so you get a chance to win the FedEx Cup, so be it,” Horschel said. “No one has made you play that first playoff event to go miss family obligations. No one has.”
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