Move to March puts wind back in PLAYERS

Tiger Woods enters the second round Friday in the mix at the Masters. We track every step at Augusta National.

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In the last 15 months, Billy Horschel has won a World Golf Championship, one of the top tournaments in Europe and Jack Nicklaus’ event. Before that, he was best known for winning a FedExCup with one of the hottest of streaks. But Horschel’s game has reached even higher levels since the start of 2021, thanks to sustained consistency instead of a couple incredible weeks. It started last March with a win in the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. Then he became the first American since Arnold Palmer to win the BMW PGA Championship, the flagship event on the DP World (formerly European) Tour. Horschel’s win Sunday in the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday vaulted him to a career-high 11th in the world ranking. With five top-10s this season, including a pair of runners-up to go along with his win, Horschel is 10th in the FedExCup. He’s missed just one cut in 15 starts and finished in the top 25 in nearly two-thirds of his starts. “It shows what we’re doing at home and what we’re doing on a weekly basis, we’re doing the right things,” he said Sunday after winning by four shots. Part of that preparation back in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, is work with the same swing coach he’s employed for 14 years, Todd Anderson, the Director of Instruction at the PGA TOUR’s Performance Center at TPC Sawgrass. In this edition of Inside My Swing, Horschel and Anderson will give a closer look at the swing of the seven-time TOUR winner and show what they’ve worked on during more than a decade as a teacher-student combination. “It’s not changing every day,” Horschel said. “It’s finding out what works, sticking with it and making tweaks here and there.” IN ALIGNMENT Some players overlook their setup because it’s the only static position in the golf swing. Not Horschel, who treats it with the utmost importance. “It’s probably 85 to 90% of my swing,” he said. “If I don’t feel correct in my setup, I’m not going to make a good swing.” Like many players, Horschel uses alignment sticks during his practice sessions. He lays one at his toes to ensure his body is properly aligned. But he also places one in front of his ball, pointing at his target (pictured above). This helps him visualize the line he wants his ball to travel on after impact and helps him get his clubface square to that target. “To be able to see where a straight line is from the clubface to the target is super important,” Horschel said. “I always align the clubface first and then align my body to that.” Horschel combats a tendency to get too “open” at address, which can occur when he’s also standing too far from the ball. He likes to feel that his arms are hanging straight down from his shoulders at address. To keep his body from pointing too far left of his target, Horschel will exaggerate the opposite of his flaw. He’ll set up to the ball with his right foot dropped back in a “closed” position, then place his right hand on the club while keeping his right shoulder back. “I’ll put my left hand on the club, … and then just try to deliver the right hand and the arm to the club without my right shoulder moving closer (to the ball),” Horschel said. “The bad times are when the right arm feels like it’s on top of the left arm. Then I feel like my right arm is really dominant.” When Horschel feels that he has his upper body properly aligned, he’ll then move his right foot into its proper position to achieve the correct setup. TAKEAWAY Horschel has been on TOUR more than a decade, but it’s never too late to make a change. Last year, he made a fade his predominant shot shape, hitting a shot that moves from left-to-right instead of the draw that was his stock shot for most of his career. In the past, Horschel fought a tendency to get the club too far “around” him. This can lead to inconsistency because it requires more face rotation to square the clubface. Switching to a fade has lessened the costly left misses that Horschel would occasionally fight. He ranks 10th in driving accuracy this season and 28th in greens in regulation. An improper setup would set Horschel’s swing off kilter from the start. When his shoulders were aimed too far left at address, his left side would be overactive at the start of the swing to “get back to square,” Horschel said. This led to him rolling his arms and the clubface, and the clubhead getting too far behind his hands. Anderson said Horschel wants his left side to be “more of a follower than a leader.” Adds Horschel: “When I get in that good setup with the right arm just below the left, that allows me to feel like my first move is my right shoulder turning back behind me and the club staying out in front of me. From there, I can just complete the backswing.” After a proper takeaway, Anderson said Horschel simply “folds” the club up to get it to the top of the swing. His hands are now higher at the top of the swing than they were when he was hitting a draw and the club no longer gets “laid off,” i.e. pointing left of the target, at the top. PUMP IT UP Horschel uses the “pump drill” to rehearse his transition from the backswing to the downswing. After completing his backswing, Horschel does this drill by bringing his hands down to chest-high and then “pumping” the club between these two positions two or three times, swinging through the ball on the final one. When Horschel would get laid off at the top of his backswing, he felt like he’d start his downswing by “pulling” the club down in an attempt to get the club in front of his hands. His downswing would get too narrow and his upper body opened up too soon. The “pump drill” helps him maintain width in his downswing and keeps his upper body from turning too early in the downswing. The “pump” comes from the movement of the right arm as it extends and then bends back up to the top of the swing. The shoulders stay relatively still during this drill. “It feels like I’m throwing or tossing the club,” Horschel said. “The left arm is staying quiet and the right arm is extending.” After completing the drill, Horschel simply feels like he can turn through impact. Horschel said this drill helps him have a shallow angle of attack, something he sees in many of the best iron players, like Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and, especially, Tiger Woods. “Tiger had a very wide release,” Anderson said, referring especially to those years from 1999-2002 when he won seven of 11 majors in one stretch. “He didn’t get real narrow with his arms. His arms stayed wide, the club kind of moved away as he came down.” CROSS HANDED Horschel is particular about his alignment on the putting greens, as well. So much so that he doesn’t make practice strokes. It’s a unique approach that pays off, as Horschel ranks 11th in Strokes Gained: Putting this season. “It takes him a little bit to get his hands on the club the way he wants, so once he does, he just slides in and hits it,” Anderson says. Horschel returned to the left-hand low grip about three years ago. Players who use that grip have to fight the tendency to get “closed” at address, the opposite of Horschel’s tendency in the full swing. But like his pre-shot routine for full shots, Horschel lets his arms hang freely to get the feel for proper alignment. He’ll also address the ball by putting his right foot in position first (pictured above) to keep him from getting too closed, the opposite of what he does on his full swing. He switched to the left-hand low putting grip, also known as cross-handed, in part because he hates to pull putts. That’s also why he stands very close to the ball when he is putting and has a forward press, where the grip is ahead of the putterhead at address. “He gets his hands high at address with his left arm hanging down under his left shoulder so that the putter sits a little bit on the toe,” Anderson says. “From there he pushes the putter back with his left hand/shoulder and then drives it through with his right arm. He wants to feel very little arm or face rotation during the stroke. It’s very straight back, straight through. His left side keeps the putter in line and the right side delivers the hit.” He also uses a chalk line (pictured) on the green to ensure he’s starting the ball on line, the same reason he places two tees little more than a ball-width apart on his target line. An off-line putt will strike one of the tees.

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Of the golfers who like to tune up for the majors with live action the week prior, Phil Mickelson is the poster boy. He’s embraced the warm-up act for years. Mickelson’s dedication has included a regular visit to TPC Southwind, site of this week’s FedEx St. Jude Classic. However, while the U.S. Open trophy remains the only hardware separating the World Golf Hall of Famer from the career grand slam, he’s already announced his intention not to compete at Erin Hills next week since the major conflicts with his daughter’s high school graduation ceremony. Nevertheless, like all who are returning to Memphis, they will find one of the most consistent and fairest tests on the PGA TOUR schedule. Horse for the course with respective finishes of T19, T3 and T2. Scoring average in 12 rounds is 68.17. Third on TOUR in birdie-or-better percentage and par-5 scoring. Performs well no matter what. Since 2013, he has two T2s, a T3 and a T11 with a scoring average of 67.88. Approach and scoring metrics are sufficiently supportive. Muirfield Village no longer has his number after Sunday’s T2. Firing on all cylinders. Leads TOUR in strokes gained: tee-to-green; second in adjusted scoring. T13 here in 2014. Chased T6 at THE PLAYERS with a solo second at the BMW PGA. Sits second on PGA TOUR in strokes gained: approach-the-green and seventh in adjusted scoring. Co-runner-up here last year; led field in scrambling. Stumbled to a T40 at the Memorial with a closing 78. Tops on TOUR in fairways hit, 32nd in strokes gained: tee-to-green. Best known as a great putter, he co-led the 2016 SJC in GIR en route to a T7. Currently 22nd on TOUR in GIR, ninth in strokes gained: putting, 10th in adjusted scoring. The recent winner at TPC Four Seasons has three consecutive top 10s at TPC Southwind (2013-2015). Ranks 10th in greens in regulation and 41st in adjusted scoring. Probably more confident this week than in any of his previous four trips sans a top 45. Tee-to-green game is as proficient as it’s ever been, too. Top 10s in three of last six starts. It’s taken 10 years to seek redemption after surrendering three-shot lead entering final round. He shot 75 to finish seventh in 2007. Recent top 10s at Masters and THE PLAYERS. Continue to percolate. His T25 at the Memorial is his ninth top-30 finish in his last 12 starts. Twelfth in strokes gained: approach-the-green. He’s 7-for-8 at TPC Southwind. The 2009 champ added a fourth top 10 here last year (solo sixth) while leading the field in birdie-or-better percentage. Back to putting like in his heyday (13th in strokes gained). First trip since a T6 in 2014, the Englishman remains buoyed by the T2 at THE PLAYERS. Eighth on TOUR in strokes gained: approach-the-green, 28th in adjusted scoring. He’s scuffled of late and he’ll be experiencing the distractions of new duties as a defending champion, but he’s an electric performer who will also lavish in the good vibes. Tournament debut. Dangerous on the greens and will need to be. Seventh on TOUR in strokes gained: putting. Placed T4 at THE PLAYERS where he was third in the stat. He’s 4-for-7 (two top 25s) since winning in Puerto Rico. TPC Southwind fits his profile as he’s 25th in GIR and 19th in strokes gained: approach-the-green. T18 here last year. Power Rankings: FedEx St. Jude Classic Rank Player Comment Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will include Daniel Summerhays, Kevin Chappell, Jim Furyk, Charl Schwartzel and other notables. This is the 60th edition of the FedEx St. Jude Classic and 29th at TPC Southwind. If the only objective was to prove consistency to anyone interested in committing, all tournament organizers had to do this year was cite that last year’s scoring average of 70.930 on the par 70 that measures 7,244 yards was just three-thousandths of a stroke lower than what it yielded the year prior. Mickelson’s phenomenal record here exemplifies his affinity for the course and the expectation. On the Wednesday of the 2015 FedEx St. Jude Classic, he summed up TPC Southwind as follows: “I think it’s the most underrated course we have on TOUR. It’s such a straightforward, fun test of golf. And if you hit good shots, you get rewarded with good putts and birdies. And if you miss the greens, you’re challenged by very difficult up-and-downs. It’s a wonderful layout.” Greens are 5,420 square feet on average, so it’s no surprise that precision on approach is at a premium. This was the formula for champions Fabian Gomez (2015) and Daniel Berger (2016). However, as Mickelson pointed out, TPC Southwind isn’t a one-trick pony. To single out another two winners, Brian Gay (2009) and Ben Crane (2014) lit up their fields with the kind of putting that has come to define their career success. For more on these angles and other identifiers, please read The Confidence Factor on Tuesday. Clear skies and warming air are expected throughout the tournament. The course’s eponymous south wind won’t make its debut until the weekend, but it’ll barely be noticeable. Combined with greens maxing at an inviting 11-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter, conditions will be ripe for scoring. ROB BOLTON’S WRITING SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Columnist Rob Bolton will be filing his usual staples leading up to this week’s event. Look for the following columns this week. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, The Confidence Factor, Fantasy Insider WEDNESDAY: One & Done THURSDAY: Ownership Percentages in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf and One & Done presented by SERVPRO * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO, which also publishes on Tuesdays.

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