Billy Horschel plans to find the answer in the dirt by grinding hard during the offseason.
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Billy Horschel is going to respond to his worst season since winning the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup in 2014 the only way he knows how.
“Practice, practice, practice,” the Ponte Vedra Beach resident said after losing his 10th cut in 23 starts this season at the RSM Classic, at Sea Island Club. “I just grind away, trying to get better.”
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Horschel shot 70-72 and missed the cut by four shots. He finished the regular season 90th on the FedEx Cup points list, failing to make the playoffs for the first time in 11 seasons, and fell further during the FedEx Cup Fall, to 110th.
Since the former University of Florida All-American finished 16th in the 2013 FedEx Cup, Horschel had made the Tour Championship (reserved for the top 30) six times and never finished lower than 66th.
The seven-time PGA Tour winner was 21st on the points list last season when he claimed his final title at The Monument. But after tying for seventh in the CJ Cup last fall, Horschel didn’t have another top 10 in a stroke play event until his solo fourth-place finish in the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C. .
Horschel tied for ninth in the Dell Technologies Match Play and tied for 13th in the 3M Championship. But that wasn’t enough to get him among the top 70 to reach the playoffs under the revamped format.
Billy Horschel found good results in Europe
Horschel did not rest much. He went to Europe and put up three promising performances, tying for 20th in France, 18th in the BMW PGA and 45th in the Irish Open, and returned home to help his wife in Britain Little by launching the Horschel Family Foundation, which was announced. on October 24.
Horschel has also been working on adjusting his irons to give him a higher trajectory and avoid missing the left side. He reduced the length of his iron shaft, flattened its lying angles and installed a lighter shaft.
Horschel hit 78 percent of his fairways and 75 percent of his greens in two rounds at Sea Island, well above his season average. But he tied for 122d in the 156 field with 31.5 putts per round.
He has been playing golf long enough to know that the sport gives and he takes off and leaves Sea Island with a positive mindset that the equipment is changing and will his work with Todd Anderson, managing director at the TPC Sawgrass, pays more. the break
Titleist Tour Producer JJ Van Wezenbeeck said the lighter weight of the Horschel irons improved his feel.
“We found that removing 10 grams from the shaft allowed him to feel his head a little more,” Van Wezenbeeck told pgatour.com. “With him and his coach, they were able to deliver the loft more consistently.”
“It’s very close,” Horschel said. “Just try to tighten things up a little bit. Since July we’ve been headed in the right direction. So it’s just trying to be a little more consistent day in and day out.”
Horschel will play in Grant Thornton
But just when Horschel started to feel comfortable about hitting a ball, his dismissal abandoned him.
“The putter was cold this week. That didn’t help much,” he said. “We hit a lot of good shots that we thought were going to be really good and they didn’t. It’s just one of those weeks, unfortunately -fortunately, where it is [ball-striking] that wasn’t bad. It was better than the score shows.”
Horschel has one off-season event planned, partnering with Andrea Lee in the Grant Thornton Invitational, a mixed team event in Naples Dec. 7-10.
Besides, it will be a work in progress until next season.
“I played well in Europe… it’s close,” he said. “Just get a little more consistent, day in and day out.”
This article originally appeared on the Florida Times-Union: Billy Horschel’s offseason plan: ‘Practice, practice, practice’
