MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 8, 2025

Billy Horschel

Quick Quotes

Q. Go Gators. Did you play with some extra pep in your step today because the Gators are national champions?

BILLY HORSCHEL: No, listen it's nice that they won. I mean, it was nice that everyone was congratulating me. Would've sucked the other way. Too bad about the Gators. Would've been a real downer.

No, it was nice. Obviously stayed up and watched the game. It was a tough game. Houston played well. You know, it's been that way with our Gators, pulling out and finding some magic. I thought we may have used it all.

Found a little bit more for the last eight minutes of the game.

Q. Do you like that narrative of them sort of every single game they look like they were completely out of it and kind of look you guys at TGL, that comeback?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, I would've rather have them play the way they did in the SEC championship game where it was a little bit more enjoyable the last 15 minutes. Yeah, listen, I don't think we played anywhere close to what our or the potentially of the team was and what they showed other times through the year.

I think it just shows you how deep our team was and how much belief. I think what you saw too, when we were down someone would make a bone headed play, which listen, wasn't a foul. I get that.

But no one got on him. Just came over and talked to him calmly. No bickering and fighting. You see this team was really together and it was that way all year.

Q. What's the golf equivalent? Throw a golf club?

BILLY HORSCHEL: No, because you don't get in trouble for that. I don't lose a shot. I may lose money or social media may hammer me a little bit. They don't get two free shots, so, yeah, I don't know what the equivalent of that would be.

Q. What are you like to watch a Gators game? Are you like nervous? Calm?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I'm pretty calm. I was pretty calm and then I got nervous about 12, 14 minutes left in the game when they were up 12 and looks like they were -- looked like we just didn't have it.

But they played really great defense the last 12 minutes of the game and got themselves back in it. Clayton hitting a three on that double screen was huge. Just calmed everyone down a bit.

Yeah, I think it was -- I felt pretty calm for the majority of the NCAA except some of the last few games when we were behind the eight ball and needed to make a move.

Q. How would you describe Gator pride? You feel it on the golf course, too. Everyone knows that you went to UF. Is it a special pride?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Listen, I think any support you can get anywhere you go is great. But, yeah, listen, obviously I've been a Gator fan my entire life and it's awesome that I hear so many, go, Gators and, congrats on the national championship. Anywhere in the world I've gone I always hear go Gators, in China, Japan, anywhere. We used to have a commercial that said Gator Nation is everywhere, and I think it was and it's honestly very true. Meeting people in China and Japan and over in the Middle East and Asia and hearing what year they graduated.

So yeah, it's always great no matter where I go I'm hearing go Gators and always someone supporting me out on the golf course.

Q. This golf course, I feel like the wind is going to come out west all week. Kind of makes the par-5s into the wind a little more challenging. Do you agree with that? Does your change your strategy at all?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, I mean, the wind is not supposed to blow that hard. Five to ten is what I saw and the other two days are bearable. Right now the wind is not projected to blow that hard.

Yeah, I think No. 2 is the biggest one because it's going to be into the wind on that tee shot. May make it a little bit easier. Some guys may be able to hit driver and keep it short of the bunker.

Right now it's like do I go hit driver and turn it? I'm not as comfortable turning it right to left as left to right. Or do I just hit 3-wood and 3-wood and I should be able to get it in two.

Yeah, that's the only one I can think of that's really playing a little bit different compared to the other two. 15 may be into the wind then.

Q. Second shot...

BILLY HORSCHEL: 15 second shot into the wind means tee shot is into the wind. Could be a little bit longer. Depending on how much the fairways firm up, can I get a big enough drive down there? No more than 5- or 3-iron into the green. If not, it's sort of just layup every day and have four wedge shots in.

Q. (Regarding left flag in two on 15.)

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, the one -- the left flag is actually -- everyone thinks you go for it, but really just trying to hit anywhere on the right edge of the green. Even if it's 60, 70 feet, you're just trying to keep it right of the flag. I don't think you're going to see anyone go flag hunting on that one for sure, because if you're a little bit off one way or the other you're in the water or could be in the back water if it hits the down slope and goes.

Yeah, just depends on clubs and numbers. My early years here I remember hitting 7- and 6-irons into the left pin and you could feel like you could be a little more aggressive, take the slope to the pin.

But, yeah, now with the link to the tee and the wind, I think you're going to see the longest guys can get there, but someone of my length I would have to hit two quality shots to feel comfortable going for it.

Q. Noah Kent making his debut. (Indiscernible.) Not going to be able to feel your arms on the first tee. Hit something hard. What advice do you remember getting before your first Masters?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Man, it was 11, 12, 13 years ago. I don't know. I didn't really ask, seek out a lot of advice. I seemed out how to play a little bit certain holes and certain pin locations. I didn't seek out the feelings you're going to have because what one person feels the other person can be completely different.

But I do say the most nerves I ever am at any tournament on a first tee is the four days here at Augusta. The most nervous I ever am. Even leading The Open Championship last year on Sunday I was nowhere close to as nervous as I am here on the morning tee every day.

Q. Is it the history?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, I think it's everything, history, legacy, understanding you're playing a golf course that's so special and you've seen so much of on TV. You know a lot of quality and the special Augusta moments, those Masters moments that you want to be a part of.

You want to have a chance on Sunday to sort of etch your name in history and do something special that people can remember you for what you did. Whether it's an unbelievable golf shot or putting on a green jacket. It's everything that's encompasses this entire tournament that makes it so special.

Q. 20 years ago there was a shot Tiger made. How old were you? First time you were here did you replicate it?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah it was 2005. I was 18, right about to graduate high school and go to University of Florida. Tiger Woods was a role model, someone I looked up to in the way he went about the game. Try to model stuff that he did in my game.

Chris DiMarco being a fellow Gator and going to the University of Florida, was it a lose-lose or win-win situation, one guy was going to win and one was going to lose. How was I going to feel?

Yeah, that shot was unbelievable. I think the call from Lundqvist and Lanny Watkins on it was unbelievable. I don't think -- maybe I tried to hit the shot one of my early years, but when you go back you have so much more appreciation for the shot he did hit under the circumstances and everything.

To hit that special shot, let alone making it, making it is sort of the just icing on the cake. He was trying to get that within three, four, five feet of the hole and for him to hit an unbelievable shot that was going to be a tap-in and go in. I mean be listen, it's Tiger. He's done some unbelievable things in his career.

I don't think anyone has ever been shocked -- we're all been shocked, but overtime we're like, yeah it's Tiger.

Q. Curious with TGL, like through those weeks you guys all seem to be kind of working towards getting a feel for it and perfecting certain things right up to you guys winning the championship. Does that work the other way? When you come back out here and play these courses, are there things that that process maybe helped or do you have to work the other way to remember how to do it the non-indoor golf way?

BILLY HORSCHEL: No, I mean, listen. Indoor golf, outdoor golf, two different things. I mean, this is so much -- we have so much repetition and knowledge and everything, so we don't have to work as hard to learn how to hit the shots. It's more understanding out here, especially. The breaks and where you're trying to -- the fall lines and where you're trying to miss it. You can use slopes to get it back to the holes here.

You're just sort of familiarizing yourself again with everything out here. It's really cool because this course allows for so much imagination. If you have that, you can use it to your advantage and hit some pretty special golf shots.