Billy Horschel almost did not tee off at the Farmers Insurance Open, but he did and surprised himself and shooting a 9-under 63 for the Round 1 lead. Excerpts from an interview on how he beat stiffness:
Billy, you were just talking about how you were feeling, maybe not being able to play. Talk about what the process was as far as when you started feeling bad and when it started feeling better?
Billy Horschel: Yeah, so I slept bad coming back from Hawaii from the Sony Open. What was that, 10 days ago? I’ve been dealing with it all last week. And my physio at home, Brian Smith, and we did some work last week. Felt pretty good, flew out here Saturday. Practiced Sunday, felt okay. And then after my practice on Monday or doing my practice Monday, it just felt like it was locking back up a little bit. We’ve been working on it for two days straight. I mean, needling, everything you can possibly think of to try to get it to loosen up. It’s more or less a trap. Not too bad, but it’s more or less a trap in the feeling I get going down my shoulder.
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I don’t really take a lot of medicine and somehow he said, hey, I think we just need to take some ibuprofen and to reduce this inflammation. Took that late yesterday morning and it made a world of difference last night. Still a little worried when I woke up this morning and it felt pretty good. Thankfully all the work we’ve done and everything I felt, it never got any tighter. It’s actually felt like it’s a little bit looser right now. Hopefully we got through the tough of it and now we’re on the downhill side and I don’t have to worry about it anymore. Yeah, like I said, I didn’t know if I was even going to tee it up today when I woke up. Even when I was hitting balls I still wasn’t sure whether I was going to tee it up.
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Was it one of those then you had virtually no expectations and this kind of frees you up in some way?
Billy: Yeah, it was. I told my caddie, Fooch, I said let’s just go out there, no expectations and just enjoy, and I think we did a really good job of that. My game’s in a really good spot. Todd Anderson and I, even with some injuries last week, did some really good work at home. Is it — on the swing, has it fully taken hold? No, but I felt really good with what we’re trying to do and our process, so I was more into that, not really too worried about the outcome or the scores and just trying to make really good golf swings and I did a really good job of that today.
Got to ask you about a couple years ago, you had like an 80-60 something?
Billy: I shot 80 last year on the South Course.
Was it just last year?
Billy: No, two years ago I shot 80 on the South course and I came back with 69. It happens.
Let’s talk about the closing holes there. There was a little bit of a backup there. You were playing really well. Did that bother you at all? What did you do during that delay?
Billy: It was slow all day. I mean, we waited on every golf shot all day. I mean, I was shocked we played the front nine in two and a half hours, it felt like three, three-fifteen. To wait those last couple holes didn’t really matter because as I said, if people were watching us, we waited on every golf shot today. And it wasn’t just our group, it was the entire group in front of us, group behind us. Maybe not the group behind us, but they were waiting too. So I don’t know what the heck was up with slow play.
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Let’s talk about tomorrow, second round, you’re in great position, different golf course. What does that course, what challenge does that provide for you tomorrow?
Billy: It’s very similar to the North Course except on steroids. You’ve got to really drive it well. It’s longer, so if you do miss it in the rough, it’s a little bit tougher. I’m going to start on the back side, which is the tougher stretch. I’ve got those holes of 11, 12 — 10, 11, 12 and a couple of the other holes, 15, 16. So yeah, I mean, I’m in a really good spot, feel really good with what I’m doing and I’m just going to go with what I’ve done well on that golf course, put balls in the fairway, put the ball on the green and hopefully make some easy pars and hopefully fire something in the red numbers tomorrow.
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