Billy Horschel did not have a good day on Friday. The former FedEx Cup champion struggled in the second round at the Valero Texas Open… and it showed.
Horschel’s day started out fine. He made birdie at the his fourth hole of the day, the par-3 13th hole at TPC San Antonio. That bird moved Horschel back to even par, which would probably be good enough to make the cut by day’s end.
But then his round began to unravel. Horschel made bogeys at 16 and 18 to fall to two over at the turn. And the damage didn’t stop there. At the par-5 2nd hole, he smashed his drive wide left into a native area, and required two shots to escape it. His fourth shot found a bunker, and he eventually recorded a bogey-6 on the hole.
After his fourth bogey of the day at No. 4, Horschel dropped to four over for the tournament. The frustratingly poor play clearly got the best of him, as a couple video clips showed.
Cameras caught Horschel hitting his second shot at the 18th hole. When his attempted layup hooked into the rough, Horschel screamed at himself, “Billy! God dammit!”
https://twitter.com/dLimacher/status/1114183904670420993
But by the time he reached the 4th (which, remember, he would go on to bogey), things started to get weird. As you can see in the below photo posted to Twitter, Horschel turned his hat backwards while playing the hole.
— Chantel McCabe (@chantel_mccabe) April 5, 2019
After several holes, Horschel eventually turned his hat back around after a yet another bogey
After his round, Horschel tweeted that he didn’t turn his hat around out of anger or frustration, but instead to use it as a “rally cap” to inspire a turnaround in his play.
Also, I wore my hat backwards to try to change up my luck. After hitting a good putt on #1 and missing another makeable birdie putt, I told my caddie, Josh, it’s rally cap time. Unfortunately, rally cap lead to 2 bogeys in 3 holes. #RallyCapdidntwork
— Billy Horschel (@BillyHo_Golf) April 5, 2019
It’s unclear whether his backwards hat is against any rules, but it is certainly a rare sight. Occasionally players will turn their hats backwards when putting in the rain to keep the water from getting in their eyes. Jim Furyk did just that to win the 2010 Tour Championship and FedEx Cup.
There is one tournament where we know for sure that backwards hats are especially frowned upon: the Masters. Rickie Fowler was reprimanded by Augusta officials early in his career for wearing a backwards hat during his Masters press conference.
But it’s not all bad news for Horschel. He’s already earned a spot in next week’s Masters thanks to his position in the Official World Golf Ranking. Unfortunately, it appears he’ll have two fewer tournament rounds than he expected to prepare for it.
