Fewer than 48 hours after shooting 68 and finishing runner-up to Xander Schauffele at the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon — his career-best performance in a major — Billy Horschel was the first PGA Tour player on the driving range at TPC Twin Cities on Tuesday morning, ahead of the 3M Open.
Fewer than 48 hours after that, Horschel withdrew from the event.
“Yeah, it was unfortunate,” Horschel said Thursday morning about his late scratch before his first round tee time. “I wasn't feeling great late last night and took some medicine. Woke up, had decent sleep but woke up and just have a fever, body is just not wanting to respond, every muscle feels like it's locked up. Tried to do a little warmup in the gym, just didn't respond. Tried to go out to the golf course and hit some balls, body's just not wanting to cooperate. Disappointing.”
Horschel was slated to tee off alongside Sam Burns and J.T. Poston at 1:43 p.m. ET. He was replaced in the field by Adam Long.
“I was looking forward to playing here at 3M,” added Horschel. “Played here last year, had a good finish. The event is well run … so very disappointed not to be able to play here after coming off a really great finish last week.”
Horschel improved to 26th in the FedEx Cup standings and secured a place in the BMW Championship (Aug. 22) with his performance in Scotland. He'll need to be in the top 30 after the BMW to qualify for the TOUR Championship at East Lake (Aug. 28).
At his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday, Horschel admitted to feeling under the weather upon arrival in Minnesota, though he chalked it up to intercontinental travel.
“Yeah, I felt pretty good for the last couple days. This morning I woke up and I was a little tired, body was moving a little bit slower, but that's expected. You travel halfway around the world, played the last couple weeks over.”
At the time, Horschel seemed determined to golf through it.
“We get back on the horse. We’ll play well this week, we’ll work hard to get better so the next time I have an opportunity to win a major, hopefully we can capitalize on it and be the one holding the trophy at the end.”
In 2014, Horschel won the BMW Championship and FedEx Cup (and with it $10 million) — his peak on the PGA Tour. After a few years of admirable if unsuccessful grinding, the 37-year-old won his eighth PGA Tour event (and first since 2022) in April at the opposite-field Corales Puntacana Championship.
Horschel's parlayed that overdue taste of victory into two top-10 major finishes (T8 at the PGA). Horschel had just one prior top-1o major finish (2013) in 11 years on the PGA Tour.
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