Billy Horschel, an 8-time PGA Tour winner, shot a career-worst 12-over 84 in the first round of the 2023 Memorial Tournament. Some other golfers would have hit that score, too. But for a defending champion to finish 12-over-par 84 in the first round can take a toll on the golfer’s mind. And this score led to something that helped the 2022 Memorial Tournament winner save his golf career.

“Something changed for me at the Memorial in 2023. It’s a low point in my career. Maybe the lowest, actually. But also in this weird sort of way … it’s a high point,” Billy Horschell wrote in The Players’ Tribune article.

“I know a lot of people remember my interview after I shot an 84 in the first round and got pretty emotional. If you didn’t see it, I basically just got everything off my chest that I was feeling. I was feeling somewhat broken at that moment. It wasn’t just my score or my swing — it was this feeling of being lost. And I felt lost in this world that I loved.”

After the first round at the $20 million 2023 Memorial Tournament, Billy Horschel took a 20-second pause before going all out at the post-round interview. He admitted that his confidence was at an all-time low and described how hard he and his team were working despite poor results. The 8x PGA Tour winner was trying really hard to hold back his tears, but his cracking voice was giving it all away.

It was not just the 2023 Memorial Tournament, though. What led to his breakdown was how the entire year turned out for the veteran golfer until that point. Before the $20 million event, he had 12 starts in 2023. Of these 12, he missed the cut in 6 of them. Of the six events he made the cut at, he finished in the top-25 only once, at the Zurich Classic. And then came the 12-over-par round.

But despite the harsh round, he was not willing to throw in the towel. “That’s just not in me,” he said, as he promised to continue working harder. In the Players’ Tribune article, Horschel said that he even opened up about the same to his team and his family. And while many golfers would not want to admit their struggles on and off the course, doing so helped the American golfer significantly.

“I think about that day often because my career could have gone one of two ways at that point. I could have internalized it and let it fester, and who knows how things would have gone after that. I’m guessing not great. But in being honest with my family, with the golf world, I found a new part of myself,” Horschel said, reflecting on the same.

“I woke up that next morning and I’m serious when I say this: I physically just felt different. Like that pressure, that weight on my shoulders, it was gone. I know some guys on tour who would have withdrawn with an “injury” after a round like that, but that’s just not me. I’m an athlete, I’m a professional. I wasn’t going to give up. So I went back to the course, and I told myself that I didn’t care anymore what people thought about me. That there was nothing to hide and nothing to be afraid of.”

There are many reasons why golfers don’t share the problems they are facing. As Billy Horschel pointed out, many believe that fans don’t want them to complain. But the 8x PGA Tour winner was at a point where he didn’t think much about it. As he shared his emotions, it lifted the burden off him.

With the burden lifted off, Horschel put up an on-par score in his second round. He missed the cut at the 2023 Memorial Tournament, too. However, that second round of on-par made him regain his confidence and took his career on a new path.

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Change in Billy Horschel’s performance after the 2023 Memorial Tournament

The 2022-2023 season was very unlike the regular-season Horschel had enjoyed in the past. If you take a look at his 2019-2020 season, he made the cut in 17 of the 23 starts he had. In 2020-2021, he missed the cut in only three events. Then he missed the cut in four events in 2021-2022. However, during the 2022-2023 season, he made the cut in only 13 of the 23 starts.

Even his numbers went down significantly. From 15th in the OWGR at the end of the 2021-2022 season, he dropped to 63rd at the end of the 2022-2023 season. He even dropped from 25th in SG: Total and 21st in SG: Putting to 102nd and 41st, respectively. But it started improving since his breakdown at the 2023 Memorial Tournament.

After the $20 million signature event, Billy Horschel had eight starts, and he made the cut in five of them. This included a T13 at the 3M Open, a T14 at the Grant Thornton Invitational, and his season’s best performance, which was a solo 4 finish at the 2023 Wyndham Championship.

In the 2024 PGA Tour season, his performance was far better than that of 2022-2023. This time, he made the cut in 17 of the 2023 starts. Besides that, he won the 2024 Corales Puntacana Championship and was a runner-up at a major event, The Open Championship. Even his SG: Total and SG: Putting grew back to 29th and 21st, respectively.

This year, however, he didn’t play much golf because of the hip surgery he had in May 2025. He had only 14 starts on the PGA Tour, of which he made the cut in nine. But he did have 1 top-5, 2 top-10, and 5 top-25 finishes in the 14 events he played in.

While the numbers are enough to show the improvement in his performance, Billy Horschel himself admitted that he started enjoying playing golf again after what went down at the 2023 Memorial Tournament.