Billy Horschel turned his season around thanks to 1 important word

BLAINE, Minn. — On Tuesday morning, Billy Horschel was alone on the driving range at TPC Twin Cities. He was short on sleep, but still on a high.

“I’m always an early riser. I’m usually on the range somewhere between 7 and 7:30,” said Horschel, speaking at the 3M Open on Wednesday. “I think there may have been one guy that was before me and that was Henrik Norlander, and he’s really early every morning.”

Horschel was congratulated by several pros who visited at the far end of the range. No, he did not win the Open Championship last week, but he got damn close. He held the 54-hole lead and didn’t necessarily play poorly on Sunday (he birdied the last three to shoot 68) but Xander Schauffele ran away with a bogey-free 65. Horschel’s T2 was his best-ever major finish — and also good for a $1,443,500 paycheck. Plus a ton of confidence, which has no monetary value but can lead to big monetary gains.

A year ago, as the defending Memorial champion, Horschel shot 84 in the first round. He still faced the media, clearly devastated and searching, and went deep on his round, the struggle and the fight. He said his confidence had never been lower. The video spread across social media and was viewed millions of times, and the candor actually helped Horschel grow his fan base.

“Well, [my confidence is] better than it was a year ago,” Horschel said Wednesday. “Listen, it’s really high. Is it the highest it’s ever been in my career? No, but I feel really good in my game, I feel I’ve got great ownership of everything I’m doing throughout my bag. Todd Anderson and I have worked really hard on every aspect to get better at. Obviously the ball-striking was the main issue there last year. I just feel very comfortable with my game and understanding if I’m a little off, I know the corrections I need to make, I know the fixes I need to do to get back to where I need to be.

“Listen, after where I was last year after Memorial to now, I’m in a completely different realm, and hopefully I can continue to build and add that confidence going forward.”

Horschel’s 2023 didn’t get worse than that 84, but he did miss the FedEx Cup Playoffs for the first time in years.

This year, he had mixed results to start the season but won the Corales Puntacana Championship (played opposite the RBC Heritage) in April. He missed the cut at the Genesis Scottish Open the week before the Open, but that’s been his only missed cut in stroke-play events in his eight starts since his win. He’s up to 33rd in the World Ranking, the highest he’s been since April 2023. He’s 26th in the FedEx Cup standings as well (and playing the season-ending Wyndham Championship in a few weeks), so he won’t miss out on the playoffs for a second straight year.

He’s also now finished his first-ever season with two major top 10s (he was also T8 at the PGA Championship). Before this year, Horschel, despite his eight PGA Tour wins, had only one other major top 10, which came at the 2013 U.S. Open. He finished fourth that year in what was his first major start as a professional. Thirty-eight starts came before his next major top 10.

He said on Wednesday he thinks he’s been doing a much better job handling majors — including the prep that goes into it, mentally and physically — the past four years. He said a turning point was the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

“I played really well, I think I was in the top five with 27 holes to go and I just didn’t play well, just didn’t handle that situation very well,” Horschel said. “But since then I felt just the feeling I have and the mentality I have has been in a better spot. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer to see the results from that. It’s nice to finally see those results, it’s nice to finally get the validation from all the hard work we’ve been trying to put in.”

At the Open, he said this year he’s tried to visualize himself holding the trophy for whatever tournament he’s playing before he goes to bed every night. He admitted he did a better job of that at Royal Troon.

But really, it just comes down to one word Horschel mentioned: “belief.”

“Just honestly walking into that week truly believing I can win and seeing that I can win,” he said.