WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 28, 2021

Billy Horschel

Austin Country Club

Press Conference

LAURA VESCOVI: Billy Horschel, congratulations and welcome to the interview room. You're now the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play champion. Tell us how you feel to have won on one of the world's biggest stages.

BILLY HORSCHEL: It's amazing. I think, I wish, when I think about it, I wish I would have -- I think I would have, hopefully this happened sooner, but you just never know when you're going to win. You just never know when it's going to be your time. You just got to continue to work hard day-in and day-out and that's what I do. I get frustrated sometimes when I don't see the results I want and I think that leads to inconsistent play. But this year I'm trying to have a little bit more, not so focused on the results, more or less the process, and hopefully the results come from that. I've done a good job, but it's just nice to be a WGC Match Play champion. I was close a month ago at Concession. Colin played really well. It just wasn't my time and today just happened to be my time.

LAURA VESCOVI: What is the mentality it takes to win like this? Obviously it's a unique format, long day, multiple rounds. How does a player like you get to the end in the final match?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I think you just got to understand that it's going to be a roller coaster. You're going to have ups and downs, you're going to have swings in matches where you think you're going to win a hole and you wind up tying or losing a hole. But you just got to understand that the next hole's a new opportunity to win a hole and improve your standing. So I've got the mentality that I'm never down, I'm never out, until you tell me I can't play anymore. So I think that's a perfect mentality for match play. I'm a bulldog. I fight hard. I never give up, and I always think I can win. I always think there's a way I can get the job done and I think that mentality just allows me to play well in match play.

LAURA VESCOVI: We'll open it up to questions.

Q. Did you just call yourself a bulldog?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I did. I was trying to figure out another reference.

Q. Well, that was the wrong one.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah. Yeah.

Q. Congratulations, otherwise. What was that like out there? I know the conditions were tough, but it was a real grind on -- it was sloppy at times from an aesthetic standpoint. Was that hard to press ahead that way when it felt like you were hanging on for holes instead of being able to go out and win them?

BILLY HORSCHEL: You're exactly right. I think it wasn't pretty. I feel sorry for the fans watching the coverage because they didn't see any great golf shots or very few of them at that. They saw a lot of sloppiness. They saw a lot of pars win holes and I think I made a birdie and I'm not sure if Scottie made a birdie.

Q. You gave him one.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Oh, I gave him one. Oh, on 2. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, it wasn't pretty at all, but it was just one of those days where you just knew you just had to keep grinding out, trying to give yourself the best opportunity to make easy pars and hopefully that was going to get the job done. I didn't have my great stuff. I don't think Scottie had his great stuff either this afternoon. It may have been a different story if Scottie was playing well. I may have had to try and press and try and find something in myself to make birdies because it was just tough out here. But I was lucky that the two guys I played with today missed some putts that they probably make on a regular basis and I made mine.

Q. Secondly, I know how much you love this format. Would it surprise you at all that in your four previous appearances you didn't get out of group play or you didn't get out of the elimination play? Did that gnaw on you a little bit and does it make this week feel that much more sweeter?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, it does. I've been in a good position to get out of group play before. 2015, I was 2-up against Rory McIlroy. Whoever won our match was going to move on. Rory drained a 45-footer on 17 and birdied 18 and then he won two holes later. So that was an opportunity loss there. I think two years ago there was an opportunity loss as well. I was up early on Jordan Spieth, I think maybe 4-up through six holes, and we wind up tying that match. So, and then I think I won my next match and had a win against Kevin Na and I think I lost.

So I've had my opportunities. I just didn't finish off matches. I think there's certain times that I've been too focused and trying to play my opponent too much sometimes from the understanding that, hey, when he's in trouble you're just like, hey, I just want to hit the green and get a, make a par and you wind up not hitting a great golf shot. So I've been more or less just trying to focus on when I do have an opening, just still try and hit the best golf shot I can to give myself the best opportunity to make a birdie, at worst an easy par.

Q. If you could just kind of take me back to -- TA talked about last week. You were on vacation and you mentioned this, but he brought up the point that you being a perfectionist that may have freed you up this week, that you kind of showed up, you clearly hadn't spent a lot of time practicing and maybe lowered your expectations or maybe gave you a little bit of patience. Would you agree with that?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I mean he's pretty right. TA's not very wrong very often. I think this week I was more or less coming in just trying to have a good week of golf, play well, understand I didn't touch a club for seven days, I didn't do any practice, just try and get in some type of rhythm, see where the game was, and so we can figure out what we needed to work on next week at home before we go to Augusta. I think I did a really good job of that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then I showed up Thursday, thinking, hey, I've got this figured out. I can, I'm swinging good, everything feels good, and I just had a bad mentality and I played really bad because of that and JT played good and beat me. So I just had to sort of check myself again Thursday night, and came out with a much better attitude Friday morning. And the goal Friday morning was just try and play a great round of golf. Play a solid round. Whether I won or not, I just wanted to feel like I had some momentum going into my prep week before Augusta.

Q. Do you feel like there's a lesson there?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, I mean, I don't know the exact lesson. I mean, I can put a lot of words together to try and figure it out and make a long thing, a short thing very long. But there is a lesson and I'm sure I will be talking with it with my team, Todd, Hortzie (Phonetic) and Bhrett McCabe about what that lesson is.

Q. I've got the inevitable Ryder Cup question for you. In 2014 obviously if the rules were what they are now you probably would have made that team as a captain's pick. Here you are a match play format, you have great success, do you start to think maybe this is my chance to make a team?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I mean, I think coming into this year I felt like this was -- I can't say the best was the year I was going to make the team, but I felt the more, I felt more or less that my game was finally coming in and I was sort of cleaning up the edges around it and showing the talent that I have. And I think there's a lot of people in this game that understand I've got a lot of talent and I've got the ability, but I just haven't put it together. And I think if you looked at some of the other formats, how I played in team events, what I've done at Zurich. I've had success there. I've had success playing at QBE Shoot-Out. So I feel like I'm a really good partner to pair up with a lot of people because I love that format. I love having a teammate there. But I don't know. I mean, yeah, I want to make the Ryder Cup team. I mean, I would be, you know, stupid to say I don't want to make the Ryder Cup team or not be aware of it. I feel like I should have been on Ryder Cup teams before but that's my fault because I haven't done what I needed to do to take care of that.

But maybe this year is the year. I don't know. We're still six months away from the Ryder Cup, so there's still a lot of golf left to be played and we'll just have to see how the rest of the year plays out.

Q. Some people, if you ask them, would honestly say the Ryder Cup's not a huge priority for me. What about you?

BILLY HORSCHEL: It's been the No. 1 priority. I don't put anything as No. 1. There is a Top-5 priority and it's always been one of my priorities that I wanted to make. I've played the Walker Cup team. I've played the Palmer Cup team, I've had successes in those formats. I love playing for America. I love playing for USA. I love when people are pulling against me because I love to just put that needle into them to show them that, hey, you try and do everything you can to affect me and it's not happening. I've always said if I make, if I could play one Ryder Cup, if I made one Ryder Cup team, I would want to play in Europe, just because that's just, I feed off of that. Not that I wouldn't feed off playing here in America. But like I said, whenever, if I do happen to make a Ryder Cup team in my career, I'll be happy because I feel like that's one check I can check off of what I have wanted to accomplish in this game.

Q. Just hearing the goal to get on that team, I was wondering what else is there? Like you just said, what you want to achieve in this game, you got a FedExCup, you got this, you want the Ryder Cup. Like what are your goals to get out of the game?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Mark Fulcher, Fooch, worked for me a little bit in the last year as I was transitioning to try to find a new caddie, and one of the tournaments he was, we rode together pretty much every day to the course and he asked me what are my goals in this game, what do I want to accomplish, if to say, hey, I felt like I've had a good career. And I mean, they're lofty. But I said, if I could win five more times on the PGA TOUR, that would be my goal. If I could get to double digit wins and those five be four majors and THE PLAYERS. I've always felt like I want to be one of those guys that the few have, who have won a Grand Slam. I've never, I more than anything, I think I only have one top-5 of a major, so obviously I sound ridiculous saying this, but I think I have that talent, I know I have that talent, I just haven't played well enough and done what I needed to do.

But, I mean, the goals would be to win all four majors, win THE PLAYERS, and make a Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup team in my career. And I think the other thing I would love to do is I would love to be a captain of a Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup team down the line. I just love being part of a team. It's something that early on as a kid growing up I don't think I enjoyed as much, but now as I've gotten older and you get to be around other people who want it just as much as you, it's just a great fraternity to be a part of at that point.

Q. You forgot earlier the 2014 22-hole match against Jason who went on to win this event when you probably had him 3-, 4-up at nine.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, I had him 4-up after nine holes and, yeah, I forgot about that one. Yeah. Yeah. That was my first year playing match play and I was playing really good and I think that was, you know, you learn so much from match play. I've had success in Walker Cup. I've had success in Palmer Cup. I've had some success in U.S. Amateur, but there's still so much you have to learn and so much ebbs and flows in matches that you have to build that experience or learn from that experience and maybe I haven't, I didn't do a good enough job of that in the past years of doing that, but I'm trying to learn from my mistakes in the past and bring them to the forefront now.

LAURA VESCOVI: Congratulations on your win this week, Billy, at Austin Country Club.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Thank you.