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AT&T BYRON NELSON

May 21, 2017

Billy Horschel

Irving, Texas

JOHN BUSH: It's a pleasure to welcome Billy Horschel into the Interview Room, our 2017 AT&T Byron Nelson Champion.

Billy, what a day, what a tournament to win, last one here in Irving. Get some comments on, I know, a special feeling for you.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah. It's really surreal. This is probably the most emotional, most -- I'm sort of speechless because the other three wins I've had in my career have come off of really good playing.

Come in here with missing four straight cuts, nothing of any type of momentum, only thing I can hang my hat on was my practice sessions for the last several months have been well, practicing sessions leading to the tournaments have been well. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened in tournaments.

Come here, I felt at peace. Maybe it was I knew I played really well the 2nd Round of Players even though I missed the cut, I felt like my game turned the corner and my caddy Josh Cassel walked down 17 last week and just said, he saw something in my game. "You know what, we're going to go next week to Dallas, to the Byron Nelson and we're going to win."

I kept telling myself that today and just trying to believe what he was telling me.

So, it's truly special place, City of Irving or City of Dallas, City of Irving and Four Seasons, 35 years here is truly a special place.

It's sad that it's leaving because I was never a fan of this course but came here and now I am and I won and I don't want to leave (laughter).

JOHN BUSH: It was an honor for you to greet Ms. Peggy Nelson greenside after you won.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Ms. Nelson is a truly special lady. To have my name along side Mr. Nelson, it's something that I can't even fathom. He's truly a legend of our game, someone I look up to what he's done on and off the golf course, how he's handled himself.

I surely wish sometimes I could handle myself like him but it's nice to be, like I said, my name along side him and have attached to his name.

JOHN BUSH: You won the FedExCup in 2014. This moves you to 15th place, really good shape here going down the stretch.

BILLY HORSCHEL: It's nice because the last couple years I haven't got back to the Tour Championship, FedEx being a huge sponsor. Everyone on Tour we can't thank them enough, they've upped another ten years.

They're truly an amazing partner of ours, believe in us players that we can help them and in their business.

To have a chance now to, you know, further push myself forward up that FedExCup list and have another chance to win the FedExCup and be along side another legend, Tiger Woods, the only guy that won it twice, that's honestly a big time goal of mine to win it again.

I haven't run out of that ten million dollars yet but I still like to have another ten million (laughter).

Q. You alluded outside that things have happened in the last year to make this a little more emotional.
Can you be more specific about that?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Not at this time. Just life gets in the way sometimes and, you know, it's truly special to be winning on something on a day like this that's I honestly -- I'm not able to talk about it right now. But it's just lot of stuff happens in the last year and this is just -- this is nice.

Q. Josh used to caddy for Senden. He was out here today with his son. Did you know that, were you aware of that? I mean that obviously was a good thing to have him and see him out here on the course.
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah. I was warming up and Josh said Senden and Jacob are back there. I stopped and went over and said hello to John and Jacob.

Obviously they've got a long run ahead of them. We all wore the cube this week in honor of Jacob, in support of Jacob.

It's tough because I'm here, I'm 30 years old. I still have a lot of life left to live but I lived a great life already and Jacob being so young, he's got a lot of years left and he's got a lot of stuff that he needs to experience that I've been fortunate enough to experience and so I know they've got a tough battle ahead of them but it was nice to see them out here this week.

Josh went over to the house I think after Thursday's round to hang out with Jacob and John but the entire Tour, the entire family of the PGA TOUR is really behind Jacob and wishing him the best and praying for him.

Q. Was there much interaction with you and Jason there either during the playoff or afterward?
BILLY HORSCHEL: I think, you know, we got on the tee and said good luck and hit our shots. Fortunately, he missed a short putt. I missed a short putt not too long ago at McGladrey to miss a playoff. I know that feeling. Obviously I get shipped away. I told Jason it's not the way I wanted to win. I know it's not the way he wants me to win. We want to earn it with a birdie.

But he's a tough competitor and neither of us had our great game today and we just all battled it out today and I was fortunate to come out on top.

Q. Billy, the three of you guys kind of in a match play scenario the whole day. Did you kind of look at that that way because nobody was coming from behind?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah. I sort of knew we were just between the three of us. I think I looked at the leaderboard somewhere in the middle of the front-9, I saw no one was really making a charge.

I could tell the guys up in front of us weren't making anything happen because there was no real cheers going on. I figured it was between the three of us. I think I saw something, I think maybe 15 I saw where we stood and that we had at least two, 3-shot lead over everybody else.

It was a battle between all of us. Like I said, I don't think either of us played spectacular today. We had our moments but I was just able to grind it out and come away with a victory.

Q. You mentioned all three of you. James almost forced a three hole playoff, or three player playoff.
On your birdie putt in the playoff did you think you had it there? It looked like you almost didn't need a miss by Jason there.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Sort of a similar putt that I had in regulation, little bit more not so past pin high. I had the line.

I've seen the line perfectly all week and the putt in regulation I thought I got it to the hole and I'm looking at the putt in the playoff and I wanted to go based off the speed of the one in regulation but I was like, you know what, that was maybe just a different line.

I thought this was one was going run out. When I hit it I knew it was on a perfect line and I thought I got it to the hole. And see it come up short like oh, I just wanted to finish it off there.

But, like I said, see Jason miss that, he's such a world class player. I didn't expect him to miss it. I was expecting to go back to the tee and play the hole again.

Q. Outside it was pretty funny because you alluded to the red pants. Did you actually pack the closest red pants you had or what happened with that (laughter)?
BILLY HORSCHEL: No. I have red pants at home. If I would have thought about it maybe I should have put them in. These are the clothes I decided when I come here. I'm pretty schedule-oriented and each day is planned out by me when I pack because I'm on the road for quite a bit of time so I had planned on wearing this last Sunday when I was packing up to come here. It was sort of ironic, they're not red, more of a coral but we can get away with it.

Q. Better than Jesper Parnevik, he had pink pants.
BILLY HORSCHEL: Nothing wrong with pink pants. Color is good.

Q. You talk about the putt at 14?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah. That putt at 14 was huge. I look back and made a good birdie at No. 11 and I had two bad 3-putts at 12 and 13 and I mean I putted beautifully all week. Hit a really good putt at number 12. I thought I made it, just didn't break.

I hit a bad putt at 13. The second putt was bad, just like the one at 10, really wishy. Wasn't trusting or believing in my stroke the way I've been all week.

I go to 14, I thought I hit a wedge shot that was no more than ten feet from the hole. It flew a long way. Man, I got another long two-putt here or another long first putt and I'm hoping to get it somewhere close so I don't have to make another 4-footer for par and I hit it and it was on a good line. I didn't think it was going to get there. It kept rolling and rolling and rolling and it dropped and that was huge because, you know, tied me back up with Jason and James and it gave me the little kick in the butt to say hey, let's not give up on this, keep grinding it out and see what happens.

Q. You alluded to what you did Friday at The Players to kind of give you a bit of a spark. Can you kind of go into detail exactly what you saw or found or got there that day?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah. So really I think when you break it down, the reason I haven't played as well the last four weeks is I haven't putted as good but the ball-striking has not been where it needs to be for me. I'll a really good ball-striker. That's what my MO is.

I just didn't know why it wasn't transferring from practice to tournament and Thursday, after the 1st Round, I play another bad round of golf, Josh and Todd Anderson, my coach, you were swinging way too fast, your tempo in practice compared to tournament is amped up by ten times. We need to slow it down.

We slowed the tempo down. I hit it really good on Friday. Got some really good breaks, unfortunately, but I battled all day to try to make that cut and just didn't happen. But I walked off that course with a sense of I didn't feel like compared to the previous, the three other missed cuts I had.

I felt like this is a step forward. I knew this was going to be, you know, a starting point for me getting the season going again and so I just kept believing in that and knowing that there was some good stuff in there.

If I just did what we had said we were going to do with really good smooth tempo, believe in the putting, believe in everything we've done -- did I know a win was coming this week? No.

I was hoping to have good momentum going because I have a stretch of golf now where I'm playing five weeks in a row and hopefully just get some momentum going forward and build off that momentum for the next four, five weeks.

Q. Earlier Bill, you mentioned -- you're obviously not going to have a chance to defend here next year.
Wondered if you've seen Trinity Forest and is your caddy Josh going to play in the caddy tournament tomorrow?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I have not seen Trinity Forest. If it's anything like the other Coore-Crenshaw work I'm going to love the place. Josh is not playing in the caddy tournament. I don't know what he's doing.

His wife and two girls drove up early this morning from Austin to cheer us on so I'm not sure what his plan was. I know he wasn't playing in the caddie tournament.

Q. Have you heard any talk from any of the players talked about what it's going to be like next year?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yes, and I've rather not say what I've heard (laughter).

Q. So, Billy, is there a way to sum up the last 8 days with you and Josh? It's been fairly eventful.
BILLY HORSCHEL: It has been. You know, I had a great caddy in Michael "Fuga". It was tough to let him go after Waste Management this year.

I was very fortunate to be able to bring Josh on my bag. You know, I was missing something. I didn't know what it was and Josh had been a massive help to me the last few months and it's been tough because I know he came on a bag that he thought was a pretty good player and to miss four cuts, something I don't think I've done -- I haven't missed four cuts probably since early in my career. I maybe miss two, three a year at most.

I know it's been tough for him because I want the play well for him and everyone on my team because they work really hard and for not being able to do that sort of wears on me a little bit and I know that they stick with me through thick and thin and supporting me and not backing away.

At the same time, I want to play well for them. I want to play well -- I want people to understand how well of a teacher Todd Anderson is. He's one of the best teachers this game of golf has, hands down. He doesn't get the recognition everyone does because he doesn't flaunt himself out there as other teachers. It's not a shot at other teachers.

He's does a quiet job and does a really good job of just, you know, teaching and letting his players do the stuff. He doesn't do -- doesn't try to bring any attention towards his way.

Josh is arguably one of the best caddies in the game. It's really been a big help to have him on my bag. There's other people, Mark "Horen", Randy Myers, Brian Smith who I put on last year as a physio guy.

All these guys have been doing unbelievable work this year and I haven't been stepping up to the plate and doing my fair share. It's nice to thank them. I thank them enough but I want to thank them with trophies. We want to be in celebrations together and it's nice to be able to be in that celebration with everyone again.

Q. You're a guy that's always played with confidence. Was there any point where your confidence wavered?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Wow, deep down, no. I mean subconsciously no, but consciously, yeah. The conscious mind sort of tries to knock you off your pedestal but the subconscious is shown in the conscious mind and that was trying to keep reminding myself that, hey, you're a great player, you can do this.

It was just I just -- like I said, I build confidence two ways. Build confidence in practice or tournaments. Obviously the confidence you build in practice goes a lot further than just trying to hopefully build in tournaments.

I knew the stuff I was doing at home was the right stuff. I knew the stuff I was doing in early weeks of tournaments was the right stuff. I just had to keep believing in it and keep believing that, you know, in tournament golf that I've done this stuff I needed to do that week to play well and sometimes I just didn't have that belief I needed.

Q. Is that why you chose to return here, because you wanted to have another week of competition to see how your swing would hold up?
BILLY HORSCHEL: There's a couple reasons I came here. I don't think I have to worry about now but fortunately I was outside the Top 50 so I wasn't qualified for the U.S. or British Open. It sucked this year. It honestly sucked to miss the Masters. I hated it.

I planned on not watching any golf and Thursday comes around and I'm glued to the TV like every other golf fan (laughter).

Yeah, I want to be in Majors and having a chance to win big tournaments. I want to go down with the greats, if I can. But I came here because of that and I came here because I needed to get a run of tournaments. I needed to play more tournament golf.

Unfortunately, this year when I played really well I didn't have another tournament to play afterwards. You look at Honda, Bay Hill, I had the week off because I was not in those WGC events. As a momentum guy I need to keep playing and have those weeks taken off I lose some of that momentum that I had built previous weeks.

So, we came here knowing that we were going to play the next four weeks. Hopefully we played well enough we get in the U.S. Open, so we played five weeks in a row. We're hoping small steps, small steps, build some momentum and we decided to take a leap.

JOHN BUSH: Next question? Anything. 2017 Champion, Billy Horschel. Congratulations once again.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Thank you guys.

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