That’s what Billy Horschel’s majors lightbulb moment can teach you as a golfer with a handicap

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At first glance, there may not be much for the handicap golfer to learn from Billy Horschel’s career-highest Open at Royal Troon last week.

But dig deeper and there are courses that cater to all skill levels and abilities.

Of course, Horschel, 37, has long been a golf enigma.

He’s good enough to win eight times on the PGA Tour. He established himself in elite company when he won the 2014 Tour Championship and the 2021 World Golf Championship Dell Match Play. He even showed a rare ability for an American to take on the world when he won the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in 2021.

However, since he finished tied for fourth in his first major as a professional at the 2013 US Open, earlier this year he had yet to make another top 10 in 39 other attempts.

However, this summer, he tied for eighth in the PGA Championship, finished the second round of the US Open in the top 20 with a T41, and was the Open leader with 54 holes before finishing second behind the Open. champion Xander Schauffele.

And while the consequences of that quality mean little to any golfer with a handicap, his feelings and the way he has dealt with them are consistent with some of our shortcomings.

Because, after 15 years as a professional, Horschel last week finally admitted: “I have learned how to handle my emotions and I have learned to accept a lot of things.”

Key among them is something we should all embrace: “I’m never afraid of failure.”

He was quick to explain this train of thought.

“I’ve had a different approach to the big games over the last few years. The results were better this year, but I think it started in 2022 just realizing that I’m a perfectionist at heart.

“I want everything to go well and it’s strange because in regular events I know I don’t have to be perfect to win, but in majors I always felt like I had to be perfect.

“In my mind, I knew I didn’t, but I couldn’t get that thought out of my head.”

Who among us hasn’t played their golf course on a range or nine fast holes and produced some great golf, then the next day put the game in their face, built up pressure, and made a mess of a key card?

Horschel also learned to accept.

“If it’s my time tomorrow, it’s my time and I’ll be very happy,” he said before the final round at Royal Troon. “If not, we will get back on the horse, and we will work hard to get back to that position again.

“I’m happy that, if a major championship win doesn’t happen in my career, I can be satisfied with what I did in golf, that I gave everything I had. I know I can look in the mirror in the next 10 to 15 years and say, ‘Hey, listen, I did everything I could to be the best player I could be, and it wasn’t in the cards for me to win. great.’”

For some of us that may be accepting that a 12-handicapper is who we are. In fact, accepting that fact may make you play better golf than chasing a perpetually unattainable six (and being miserable in the process).

Horschel also felt that pillow talk helps, too.

“The thing I did this year is to show myself holding the trophy before I go to bed every night,” he said. “I see myself holding this trophy at 18, going out to the crowd and being congratulated as the Open champion.

“That’s what I’m going to do again tonight, and hopefully that will happen tomorrow.”

It didn’t happen but he got closer than ever.

And if you’re not convinced by mind games, Horschel also promoted the age-old message of hard work.

“I’ve always embraced the rigors of anything,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed it. I think that’s the best way to give yourself a chance to play well.”

In addition, he explained that his third-round pick, Justin Rose, has been an inspiration.

“I’ve been looking at Justin for years and I told him that,” she said. “The way he runs his business, the way he checks all the boxes, I have imitated that a little in what I have done.”

Acceptance, letting go of the fear of failure, envisioning and grinding: that’s Billy Horschel’s way and we can all learn from it.