For Billy Horschel, Playing the Weekend at the U.S. Open Is a Triumph
LOS ANGELES — There’s a point where making the cut is a victory and for Billy Horschel, making the cut at the U.S. Open is not just a triumph, but a building block for the remainder of the year.
Horschel hasn’t sniffed the leaderboard at the 123rd U.S. Open and while he hoped to be competitive, as all professionals do when they arrive on Monday, realistically after his performance at the Memorial Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, that had to be expected.
Two weeks ago as defending champion, Horschel opened with a 12-over-par 84 and would eventually miss the cut and watch the coronation of Viktor Hovland at home.
After one of the worst scores in his career, Horschel talked about how he was making big numbers on every single hole, yet the video of his swing looked good and that technically it’s not far off.
As you listened, you could see the tears in his eyes and the rumbling of pure emotion in his voice.
One thing that he did mention, almost in passing, is that why he was struggling was due to his ball flight.
“I'm not able to hit the cut the way I want,” Horschel said in Columbus after his first round. “I can't get the ball to start left the way I want.”
After shooting a 1-over 71 in Saturday’s third round in Los Angeles, Horschel said that a week of quality time with his coach Todd Anderson at home left him feeling good about what they had done.
As part of their U.S. Open preparation, Anderson and Horschel went to Brentwood Country Club to work on a Gears Golf Biomechanics system to get a better understanding of his swing.
Like a patient waiting for the lab results, Horschel went through the process and the diagnosis was that his swing was fine, but his mid and long irons were 2 degrees flat and while he would try to aim left and cut the ball, the ball would instead go further left.
Titleist built a new set of irons and he was off to the range.
“Honestly, I mean Tuesday, Tuesday’s session on the rain range was awesome,” Horschel said. “And then every day it's gotten better.”
Horschel is still struggling at times, but now with the irons to the proper specifications, close to his 2013-14 specs when he won the 2014 FedEx Cup, he is looking forward to the next five weeks and hopefully a FedEx Cup run.
“So, it takes a little while to get that out of your head a little bit,” Horschel said. “And this week has been a really great week to improve and see some quality stuff and sort of gives me a little bit ... I wouldn't say motivation but gives me that little pep in confidence that I need going forward.”