FedEx Cup and Tour Championship winner Billy Horschel has been the toast of the golfing world these last few weeks, and things have worked out really well for the American as he banked a total of $13.47 million since the beginning of this month.
However, it was hard not to be taken aback when his honest answer that he would not leave the Tour Championship last week if his wife went into labour with their first child, met with such vehement criticism, especially from fans on social media.
There were some who compared him to Phil Mickelson, who famously played the 1999 PGA Championship with his pager and had said he’d pull out if wife Amy was about to deliver their child, even though he was in contention and on the verge of winning his first major (which he did not).
And then there were comments about how Hunter Mahan withdrew from the Canadian Open last year despite leading at the halfway stage when his wife was rushed to hospital.
Let’s face it, circumstances are always different for different people and the possibility of winning a $10m cheque is not to be sniffed at.
Horschel has always been proud of his blue-collar family and modest upbringing. He is just 28, and there have been many examples in sports where the best of talents have not been able to carve out a long, successful career for themselves.
What he has done in the past three weeks takes care of his family’s needs for years to come, and he is now in a position where he can withdraw from events for whatever reasons he chooses.
In a 2013 interview with Golf Digest, Horschel said: “My family never had lots of money. I wasn’t a country-club kid, so I always wanted to make it big to be able to repay my family for all they had done for me.”
So well done Horschel. Somebody up there was really looking after him, because his wife did go into labour on Tuesday after the tournament – 10 days before the due date – and he is now a proud, and I must add, very rich father.
The curious case of Furyk 
You have to wonder what Jim Furyk needs to do to break this extremely frustrating title drought that he is going through right now.
He has done just about everything, including shooting the only round of 59 in the last four years on the PGA Tour and signing up with Five-Hour Energy drink, perhaps to give himself that extra edge, but nothing has worked out for him since winning the 2010 Tour Championship.
So much so, he had to cheer up the media centre after yet another near miss at The Barclays, saying: “I feel like every time I go to the press room, I understand the questions coming and I feel like we’re in a morgue. Like everyone is looking at me with this blank stare and they ask me depressing questions
“They bring up the Ryder Cup the last time (where he lost to Sergio Garcia in the closing stages), and we go through Akron (a double bogey on the last)… and I leave there like I lost my dog. It’s golf. I didn’t die out there today. I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me.”
Furyk has led eight times going into the final round since his last win, and has not converted. Such has been his consistency that he is now the No5 player in the world, the highest ranked American in fact.
He has had 22 top-10s in the last two years, and was runner-up four times this year. And 29 out of his last 32 rounds have been sub-par.
It’s easy to criticize Furyk for being unable to get the job done, but he needs to be hailed for what he has managed to achieve. To be in contention in so many tournaments is just fantastic.
Stats of the Week 
96 – Number of players who earned more than $1 million on the PGA Tour this season.
25 – Players on the PGA Tour who have averaged over 300 yards off the tee. In 2000, only one player did that – John Daly. Bubba Watson (above) leads the stat with an average drive of 314.3 yards.
