Billy Horschel was “gutted” that he didn’t get a call from U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker earlier this week. He used the snub as motivation and fired a final-round 7-under 65 at Wentworth Golf Club to win the BMW PGA Championship in Surrey, England.
In doing so, Horschel became the first American to win Europe’s flagship event since Arnold Palmer and the first American to win any of the European Tour’s Rolex Series events.
It was also a throwback to 2014 when Horschel won the BMW Championship and Tour Championship after the U.S. Ryder Cup team’s captain choices already were selected. Despite a victory at the WGC Dell Match Play earlier this year and a fiery personality that seems well-suited for international team competition, Horschel was overlooked as one of Steve Stricker’s six captain’s picks. (He took Scottie Scheffler, who Horschel defeated in the finals of the Match Play instead.) Asked if he thought he might get a call from Stricker to replace the injured Brooks Koepka if he is unable to play, Horschel said, “I don’t know. It sucks not making the team. I didn’t play well enough after winning the Match Play to warrant a pick or to be an automatic selection.
“I was a little gutted that I didn’t get the call this week. I didn’t think the call was going to say I made the team, but I was a little gutted I didn’t get a call to say, hey, you didn’t make the team. In my mind, I thought I would at least get that. It was a little more motivation for that.”
Horschel birdied the 18th hole to edge England’s Laurie Canter, Wales’s Jamie Donaldson and Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat.
“It’s pretty special,” Horschel said. “I grew up watching this event on TV. I don’t say this lightly, this event goes hand in hand with our Players Championship so it’s nice to check that box off.”
Horschel, 34, played his final 29 holes bogey-free and made birdies on five of his first 12 holes on Sunday. But up ahead, Aphibarnrat was torching Wentworth to the tune of 9 under for his first 16 holes, which included an 18-foot made putt for eagle at 12 and pumped his right fist.
Thailand’s John Daly, as he’s called, led by three strokes over Horschel at the time. But he pulled his second shot at the par-5 17th into a hedge, had to take an unplayable and made bogey to shoot 64 and grab the clubhouse lead at 18 under. Donaldson birdied the final two holes for 66 but missed his eagle putt at the last and finished one short. Canter, who was attempting to become the first Englishman to get his first European Tour victory at Europe’s flagship event since Tony Jacklin in 1972, made par at the final two holes, a pair of par 5s, to close in 67.
Horschel burned the left edge on a 23-foot birdie putt at 17 to break the deadlock at 18 under, but wedged from 91 yards to a foot for the decisive birdie at 18 to finish at 19-under 269.
Horschel, who has six PGA Tour career wins, won for the first time in Europe and assumed the lead in the Race to Dubai.