Billy Horschel Ready to Put Himself on The Line Again at The US Open

BILLY HORSCHEL is a class act. Most professional golfers, having just shot a round of 84, would have headed straight into their car and headed for their hotel or the nearest airport departure lounge.

Not Horschel. After a truly horrific opening round at The Memorial, he marched straight into the pressroom to face the media. Clearly struggling with his emotions, the American admitted that he was struggling with his swing and that it was affecting his mental wellbeing.

“It’s really tough right now,” Horschel said, fighting back tears. “My confidence is the lowest it’s been in my entire career, I think ever in my entire golf career.”

To make matters even worse, he was the defending champion.

Every single one of us who has played this game knows exactly how frustrating it can be. Just when you think you have cracked it, it has a nasty habit of slapping you in the face. Hard!

And top professionals are no exception.

Horschel could have been forgiven for withdrawing. That’s exactly what many of his fellow players would have done. Not Billy. Instead, he returned and battled back with a second round of 72.

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

He sat out the Canadian Open but will be playing in this week’s US Open, a tournament in which he has a pretty poor record. His best finish came way back in 2013 at Merion, when he finished tied fourth. This will be his 11th start and he has missed the cut four times, including in each of his past two starts. 

If ever there was a tournament where you would hope to go in with some decent form, this is it.

And it has been notable just how many leading professional golfers have paid tribute to him. They included former Open champion Paul Lawrie and the irrepressible Eddie Pepperell.

Pepperell said he knew exactly how Horschel felt. The English golfer has had his own travails over the past couple of years. And he has had his critics for spending so much time on social media. It is clear that Pepperell sees Twitter as a release mechanism.

He is one of the most likeable men on the DP World Tour and has many people pulling for him as he keeps plugging away.

And Lawrie is a golfer who, quite rightly, felt that he did not get the credit he deserved for winning The Open at Carnoustie in 1999. It is all too easy to forget that he made up a 10-shot deficit in the final round, shooting a fabulous 67 on a day when the course brought the world’s finest golfers to their knees - just as Muirfield Village did with Horschel.

Everybody talks about Jean Van de Velde’s final-hole meltdown but the reality is that Lawrie’s 67 was world-class, just as was his form in the playoff that followed it. It wasn’t his fault that the Frenchman took seven shots to negotiate the 18th hole.

The Scot spent several years in the wilderness before battling back to the top of the game and qualifying for the European Ryder Cup team in 2012. In case you have forgotten, that was the contest that was played at Medinah when Europe produced an unlikely comeback on the final day. And Lawrie played a full part in Europe’s astonishing triumph.

It remains a disgrace that Lawrie has never seriously been considered to captain Europe. He is a former major champion and experienced the worst of the contest at Brookline in 1999 and the very best at Medinah.

He knows all about the highs and lows of the game, and if Horschel needs any inspiration as he attempts to get back to the top of the game, there is no finer example than the Scot.

He would also surely have taken great comfort from the hundreds of messages of support posted on Twitter, of which this one is typical: "We're behind you Billy. Just keep fighting. Keep digging. Never lose sight of the fact it's a game and one you love to play. Always believe in yourself and in what you're doing to get better each day. Never. Give. Up!”

I couldn’t have put it any better myself.