Inside My Swing: Billy Horschel

The 2021-22 PGA TOUR season was unforgettable for many reasons. A season that began with one budding star picking up his third win (Max Homa at the Fortinet Championship) was capped off 11 months later by the biggest final-round comeback in TOUR Championship history (Rory McIlroy, 6 back). What happened in between was unforgettable, too. These are the stats and notes that best tell the story of the 2021-22 PGA TOUR season. The breakout superstar Scottie Scheffler began the year as the highest-ranked player without a PGA TOUR win. Less than five months later, he was a major champion, the FedExCup leader, and the No. 1 player in the world. On Super Bowl Sunday in Phoenix, he beat reigning FedExCup champ Patrick Cantlay in a playoff for his first PGA TOUR win. When he won the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play just 42 days later, he was tops in the OWGR. It’s by far the fastest a player has gone from winless on the PGA TOUR or DP World Tour to world number one – the previous-fastest sprint to the top came from Tiger Woods, who did it in 252 days. Scheffler made his first start as No. 1 at the Masters, the first player to do that since Ian Woosnam in 1991, and like Woosnam, Scheffler won. It was his first major title and fourth win in six PGA TOUR starts – the first time anyone had gone four-for-six since Jason Day in 2015. (Day’s run also included his first major win, at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, and an ascent to world number one.) The most recent player, before Scheffler, to collect his fourth win of the season at the Masters: Arnold Palmer in 1960. The scoring records Before the Sentry Tournament of Champions, there had never been a 72-hole PGA TOUR event where two players finished regulation at 30 under par or lower. The week of the Sentry, there were three. Jon Rahm made 32 birdies, tying the record for a 72-hole tournament, and he didn’t even win. At the Sony Open in Hawaii the following week Hideki Matsuyama and Russell Henley were tied through four rounds with a total score of 257. When Matsuyama won the playoff, Henley received the dubious honor of lowest 72-hole total in PGA TOUR history for a player who did not win. Sebastian Muñoz became the first player in TOUR history to record two rounds of 60 in the same season – he got his first at The RSM Classic, and second at the AT&T Byron Nelson. At the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, Justin Thomas played his last 13 holes (including the playoff against Will Zalatoris) in 6 under to win. He was seven shots off the lead to start the day. The comeback tied the largest by a winner in PGA Championship history (John Mahaffey in 1978), and was the biggest in a men’s major since Paul Lawrie was 10 back at the 1999 Open Championship. Thomas’ win was not just his second major, but also his 15th PGA TOUR title. Since World War II, only five other players have won 15 PGA TOUR events, including multiple majors, before the age of 30: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. All four men’s major winners in 2022 were under 30, the first time that’s happened since the inception of the Masters in 1934. Players in their 20s had previously won three of the four majors 17 different times. The right mix of man and tournament/golf course After two years of cancelations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fans at the RBC Canadian Open were primed for a thrilling week. The players delivered. In the final round, Justin Rose flirted with 59 but settled for 60, becoming the first European player in PGA TOUR history with multiple rounds of 60 or better in his career. Thomas, McIlroy and Tony Finau were electric, shooting a combined 20 under par. When McIlroy came out on top, it marked the first time in his PGA TOUR career he had successfully defended a title. Nine years after winning the U.S. Amateur with his little brother on the bag at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, Matt Fitzpatrick returned to claim his first career major victory. It marked just the second time in men’s golf history that a player won the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open at the same course – Nicklaus also did it at Pebble Beach. Fitzpatrick hit 17 greens in regulation in the final round at Brookline, becoming just the third major winner in the last 30 years to hit 17 or more GIR on Sunday of a major win. The breakout rookie Cameron Young’s seven top-three finishes on the season included the PGA Championship (T-3) and The Open Championship (2nd). As well as he played all season, though, it did not include a victory. Young is the first player to have seven or more top-three finishes but no wins in a single PGA TOUR season since Payne Stewart in 1993. Young wound up with more than $6.5M in official earnings – the most in TOUR history for a rookie and the most for a player in a season without a win. Sahith Theegala, the other rookie to make the TOUR Championship, shot the most rounds in the 60s on TOUR (55). Davis Riley (6 top-10 finishes), Chad Ramey (won Corales Puntacana Championship) and Tom Kim (both winners this season), help make this rookie class one of the strongest in years. Feel-good win of the season Arguably the most cathartic win was by perpetual major contender Will Zalatoris in a playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. By outlasting Sepp Straka, Zalatoris banked his first PGA TOUR title in the first stop of the three-week FedExCup Playoffs. His incredible consistency in the majors early in his career doesn’t happen often: at the U.S. Open, he picked up his sixth top-10 finish in just his ninth major start. The last player to do that was Antonio Cerda, an Open Championship fixture in the 1950s. When Zalatoris got the win at TPC Southwind he was 14th in the Official World Golf Ranking. That marked the highest World Ranking by any American player at the time of his first TOUR win, just ahead of Scheffler at TPC Scottsdale earlier in the year (15th). The winners who overcame calamity The PGA TOUR has been tracking hole-by-hole scoring data for 40 seasons. From 1983 through July of this year there were more than 1,700 official stroke play events contested, and never was a tournament won by a player who started the week with triple bogey or worse. Then it happened twice in August. At the Wyndham Championship, Tom Kim began his week with a quadruple bogey. His long, incredible climb back up the leaderboard – which included a front nine 27 in the final round – ended in a runaway five-stroke victory. Three weeks later in Atlanta, Rory McIlroy – who was already ceding six “Starting Strokes” to Scheffler – opened his tournament with triple bogey and went on to win. The sneakiest, most dramatic improvement The most impressive turnaround for McIlroy didn’t come at the TOUR Championship, or not just there, anyway. It was a facet of his game that went from burden to brilliant over just a few months. Through the Masters, McIlroy was struggling with his wedges: From 50 to 125 yards away, he ranked 208th of 209 qualified players in proximity to the hole (24 feet, 1 inch). From his next start – the Wells Fargo Championship – through the end of the year, he completely turned that around. His average of 14 feet, 1 inch from that point through the end of the season was tops on the PGA TOUR.

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – The biggest surprise on the PGA Championship leaderboard is not how many Brooks Koepka leads by… it is that one of his closest chasers is Thailand’s Jazz Janewattananond. At just 23, he is already a three-time Asian Tour winner and also has a win on the Japan Tour. If he keeps up his form at Bethpage Black, we could be seeing a lot more of him – including in the Presidents Cup this December at Royal Melbourne. Should he finish second alone, he could jump to as high as second on the International Team standings for Ernie Els team. He is currently 16th on the list. Here’s what you need to know about the Thai star. His first name is actually Atiwit. His father was a huge fan of jazz music and gave his son the nickname Jazz. His surname is pronounced “JANNA’-watta-NON’-nond.  He’s a pocket rocket at just 150 pounds and 5-feet, nine-inches tall. He was a member of PGA TOUR Series-China in 2015 as a 19-year old (finished 22nd at Q-School) and went on to play one event, tying for sixth in Zhengzhou.  This is his fourth PGA TOUR start. He missed the cut at the 2017 Charles Schwab Challenge, was T39 at the 2018 CIMB Classic and missed the cut at the 2018 Open Championship. In 2019 he has won the Singapore Open, and has five other top five finishes around the world at the Boonchu Ruangkit Championship (5th), the New Zealand Open (4th), The Maybank Championship Malaysia (3rd), the Bangabandhu Cup Golf Open (T5) and the Singa Chiang Mai Open (T4). He is currently ranked 72nd on the Official World Golf Ranking.  Became the youngest golfer to make the cut on the Asian Tour. Turned pro at 14 in 2010. Won his first Asian Tour event at the 2017 Bangladesh Open. Spent two weeks as a monk in Thailand one off-season (2016) and claims it was the key to becoming a winner. He is using a local caddie this week at Bethpage – Jack Miller. Miller is 63 and worked at Bethpage Black since 2009, but is a full-time Frozen Food Manager for King Kullen Grocery Company. He had never been to New York before.

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KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – Brooks Koepka can barely bend down to get his ball from the hole. Phil Mickelson is battling father time before our eyes. While the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah was a celebration of youthful virtuosity (Rory McIlroy), the 2021 PGA has become a drama of the human condition. It’s about scar tissue both literal and figurative, and man’s animating quest to catch up to his younger self. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Final round: How to follow, tee times | Details on Mickelson’s new custom driver “I felt I had a very clear picture on every shot,” said two-time PGA TOUR Champions winner Mickelson (70), who despite some shaky moments on the back nine will take a one-shot lead over Koepka (70) going into the final round Sunday. “And I’ve been swinging the club well, and so I was executing. I just need to keep that picture a few more times. “So even though it slipped a little bit today,” he added, “and I didn’t stay as focused and as sharp on a few swings, it’s significantly better than it’s been for a long time.” Louis Oosthuizen (72) is two off the lead, and nine players, including major winners Bryson DeChambeau (71) and Gary Woodland (72), are within five. “I left a lot out there,” said Koepka (31 putts). “I’ve got a chance to win, so that’s all I wanted to do today is not give back any shots and be there tomorrow with a chance, and I’ve got that.” Unlike Mickelson, Koepka, who won the PGA in 2018 and ’19, has non-age-related issues. He won the Waste Management Phoenix Open for the second time in February, but shortly after that had surgery to repair a dislocated kneecap and ligament damage to his right knee. “Even though I’m not 100 percent,” he said earlier this week, “I can still hit the shots.” He was in obvious discomfort and unable to bend down to read putts or retrieve his ball from the hole at the Masters. He missed the cut. He also missed the cut at the AT&T Byron Nelson last week, but was pleased, he said, to be able to hit a variety of shots. Kiawah is a very long walk – at 7,876 yards, it’s the longest major venue ever – but at least it’s not hilly. And he’s proven himself correct; he really has hit all the shots. Mickelson would become the oldest men’s major winner, besting Julius Boros, who was 48 at the 1968 PGA. It would be his second PGA title (2005); sixth major (and first since the 2013 Open); and 45th PGA TOUR victory (first since the 2019 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am). The Ocean Course is a slippery stage, though, and even in his prime, Mickelson – now 115th in the world, 168th in the FedExCup – was one of the most accident-prone superstars. He led by five shots early on the back nine Saturday but showed cracks over the next two hours. The most glaring of these was his wild hook at the par-4 13th hole. The ball never crossed dry land, and although Mickelson made a valiant effort – hitting three from the tee and sticking his next shot to just over 11 feet – he failed to make the putt and carded a double-bogey. His five-shot lead was down to just one over Koepka and Oosthuizen, and although he striped his tee shot to just under 7 1/2 feet at the par-3 14th hole, his birdie try missed badly. The entire sequence – his failure to birdie the par-5 11th to his failure to birdie 14 – took only an hour. Older players have flirted with winning majors. Jack Nicklaus was 58 when he contended deep into Sunday at the 1998 Masters. Tom Watson was 59 when he nearly won the 2009 Open Championship. Fred Couples was 52 when he led after round two of the 2012 Masters. None of them won. With just two victories in the last seven years, Mickelson admits his mental game isn’t what it was. He has tried dietary changes, meditation, and marathon sessions of 36 to 45 holes a day. It’s a work in progress. What remains clear is that he’s having fun. He and Steve Stricker took on Zach Johnson and Will Zalatoris in a practice round earlier this week, and Mickelson birdied the first three holes. “Phil and I were 3-up after three,” Stricker said, “and he said it loud enough so everybody could hear, ‘You know, Strick, I thought we’d be more up at this point.’ And we were 3-up after three. “Typical Phil,” he continued. “It’s good to see him out here. He has such a good time in those practice rounds and seeing everybody it seems like. He still has a tremendous amount of desire to compete at this level, and that’s why he’s doing it and that’s why he’s playing well.” He’s still got one more day of fun, if that’s what this is. He’s still got people watching.

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