Billy Horschel watches during the first round of the Memorial Tournament on Thursday in Dublin, Ohio.
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Billy Horschel was more nervous than usual when he woke up on Thursday. He had a tee time at the Memorial, which should start to panic. You are freed from sponsors at this Signature event, which you should also be nervous about. But part of his emotions were connected to what happened 12 months ago, when he shot an opening round of 12-over 84 at Muirfield Village and said his confidence was “very low.”
“I’ve been thinking about it since Tuesday,” Horschel said Thursday. “Every hole I’ve played this week, I’m thinking, God, how bad I played that hole on Thursday last year.”
Professional golfers have amazing memories, and they often use them to their advantage. But sometimes they remember things again well. And so it certainly is with Horschel at Muirfield.
“That 84 is still standing a little bit,” Horschel said. “I think it’s just one little thing that I need to finish and play well today. I hit some really good golf shots, and I’m going to come back, you know, I think, hopefully, I’m going to pass the goal of what happened here last year.”
That round was messy. Horschel has been struggling with misses that started left and left. The false angles in his frames were all disintegrated.
But more than his scores or his misses or his clubs, you might remember Horschel’s following words. A video of his press conference Thursday, tweeted by GOLF.com’s Dylan Dethier, has now been viewed more than 3 million times. When you watch it, it’s easy to understand why it went viral:
It revealed vulnerability, a little shame, disappointment – a man who wants to let the world know that he is fully aware of what is happening to him, he is troubled by it, he is confused and he wants to be free. Speaking of his ordeal, he said, he woke up the next day feeling completely different.
“Just kind of get it off my chest and everything,” Horschel said this week, “and from there, I can start moving forward again.”
Pro golf is filled with resets. The ugly front nine? Reset to turn. Bad first round? Reset Friday’s runner where you left off. Bad competition? You have another week ahead. But this one was cooking for Horschel. Getting the thoughts off his chest allowed him to shake off a bad round and play solid golf the next day. A 72 – even sec.
It may have been 12 months ago, but Horschel still thinks of that time as a turning point. Shooting 84 as the defending champion was, for him, too low. But he realized that he plays his best golf when he is himself, when he shares his thoughts, when he can be vulnerable.
“I mean, the number of texts and phone calls I received in the next week, the number of messages I received on social media was amazing,” he said looking back. “I was very grateful for the people who reached out and took the time of the day to give me a few positive words to move forward … I always try to be human and – I’m no different from anyone else who does anything else in the world except that we do something on the public stage and we do something that we have to put ourselves out there on the leg and be more vulnerable every day and play at a higher level, and that’s what we do compared to most people in this world.”
Less than two months after that press conference, Horschel competed in the Wyndham Championship. In March this year, he was building form again, finishing in the top 12. Then, during the week of the RBC Heritage, Horschel was down in the Dominican Republic for a cross-country event, and everything clicked. He shot a final round 63, moved up the leaderboard and won by two. Which is part of what brought him back to the Memorial.
The long road back to Muirfield required Horschel to write a letter and argue his price as a sponsor’s release. Writing to Jack Nicklaus and his son and saying, Hello, as a former champion of this event, I would really appreciate the opportunity to play this year. Many experts write such books these days. More are rejected than accepted. But Horschel received one of the four bids. And when he came to the site this year, he couldn’t stop thinking about last year.
Even after shooting 69 in the first round, it’s a clear 15 shots better than 12 months ago.
“Like I said, there’s a little bit of a scar from here last year, but I think I hope I did that today.”
Maybe, Billy. Horschel made five birdies on Thursday, drove it better than anyone in the tournament and made 115 feet. That will produce a great day on any course, but especially on one of the Tour’s strongest sets of pros.
After his first round of redemption, Horschel went over his struggles last year – how his iron lie angles were off by 2 to 3 degrees and how his swing was technically sound, but he saw an awful lot of shots and how. he had to change those pictures in the memory bank and see the good. These are the machines pro golfers work with while recording a number that represents their day’s work. Sometimes it’s a good number. Sometimes not. Treating them the same way can be difficult to do.
“It’s golf and we’re all going to have good rounds, we’re all going to have bad rounds,” Horschel said Thursday. “And, to be honest, what it comes down to is waking up the next day and going out and giving it your all and giving it your all to try to play a good round of golf again.”
