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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Just two months after Billy Horschel opened with an 84 at the Memorial and said through tears during his post-round press conference that his confidence “is the lowest it’s been in my entire career,” Horschel grabbed a share of the 54-hole lead at the Wyndham Championship.
One day after shooting 62 at Sedgefield Country Club, the low round of his career, Horschel backed it up with a bogey-free 7-under 63 on Saturday to tie Lucas Glover at 18-under 192. With time to kill at the end of the broadcast window, CBS re-aired the clip of Horschel’s emotional press conference, which included him saying, “I’m close.”
“That interview, that moment, as I’ve talked about a while, it was sort of like a release. I don’t fully understand why it happened then and there, because I had shared some of that with my team and my family before leading up to that, but right then and there it just happened,” he said. “From that moment I’ve been in a better head space, the game’s been going in the right direction since then.”
It doesn’t hurt that the putts have been dropping like old times. Last week, Horschel switched to an Odyssey putter and it’s been a game-changer this week. He ranks first in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting, gaining more than nine strokes on the greens and registered seventh straight under-par round.
“Just felt like needed a new look,” he said. “We sort of messed around with a Ping putter earlier this week and we thought we were going to use that, but I had a little hard time with longer putts, judging the speed with it, so we went back to this Odyssey and it’s working well.”
Indeed, it is. Horschel, the 2014 FedEx Cup champion has qualified for the playoffs in each of the last 10 seasons but he entered the week at No. 116 in the point standings. He enters the final round projected to jump 63 spots and move on to Memphis next week, but he can’t finish worse than a two-way tie for second. The way he’s rolling the rock, his eighth win of his career is well within his sights.
“I’m happy where my game is, I’m happy where things are trending, I’m happy where mentally I’m heading,” he said. “So hopefully it’s just another day of moving forward, it’s another steppingstone. I haven’t been here in a while, but I’m prepared for whatever, however I may feel, whatever comes tomorrow.”
Here are four more things to know from the third round of the Wyndham Championship.