As if playing the Bear Trap wasn\u2019t difficult enough, Billy Horschel had to deal with a mouthy spectator Friday at the Cognizant Classic.<\/p>\n
The incident took place after Horschel played his second shot at the par-3 15th hole, the first of PGA National\u2019s intimidating three-hole stretch. Horschel had sent his tee ball into the grandstand long and left of the green, taken his drop and then proceeded to skull his chip over the green and into the water. That\u2019s when a spectator sitting in the grandstand chirped at Horschel.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, everyone has been saying, \u2018Overseed, overseed,\u2019\u201d Horschel said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the first time I heard it today, but obviously in that situation, I hit a bad golf shot and they wanted to say it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The heckle prompted Horschel to turn around and inquire, \u201cWho said that?\u201d As he reached into his bag for another golf ball, Horschel clapped back, \u201cI mean, I guess you guys wanna make yourselves feel good about yourselves with a comment like that, don\u2019t ya?\u201d<\/p>\n
The spectator then accused Horschel of bad-mouthing the golf course, according to Horschel\u2019s account of the exchange, which wasn\u2019t totally audible on the broadcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cComplaints about your course?\u201d Horschel could be heard responding. \u201cI said it\u2019s been pretty good, my man. Maybe you should read the entire comments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horschel is referring to comments he made after Thursday\u2019s first round, in which he addressed the ryegrass overseeding that PGA National has done in recent years, a switch from the traditional Bermuda-only grass that once made the course one of the most challenging on Tour. Last year, Jake Knapp shot 59 and Joe Highsmith won at 19 under, while this year, 36-hole leader Austin Smotherman already sits at 11 under.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the tour gets a bad rap, and it\u2019s not anything against the owners of PGA National,\u201d Horschel said on Thursday. \u201cI understand where they would want to overseed. People want it to look pretty on TV, and if it looks pretty on TV, maybe people will want to come play it. But at the end of the day, as I\u2019ve said for many years on the PGA Tour, I understand we are using a golf course that we don\u2019t own a lot of times, and sometimes we\u2019re at the discretion of what the owner wants to do. Obviously, we give our opinion of what we think is best for the golf course and how they want to set it up and challenge it; but also, the owners have a say in it. But I think for me, as I said last year, born and raised in Florida, playing a Bermuda golf course, this far down south and playing overseed, it\u2019s going to be soft.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horschel added, \u201cIt\u2019s not a shot at anyone. It was just sort of commenting to someone who was taking a shot at the PGA Tour, and I sort of gave them a little more insight that it\u2019s not always in the PGA Tour\u2019s hands. If they want to try and do something, it\u2019s not always in their hands to set it up the way they want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fast forward to Friday, and Horschel, who ended up carding a triple bogey on No. 15 after playing his fourth shot from the drop zone and two-putting from 23 feet, continued to clarify his opinion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve praised this golf course for many, many years,\u201d Horschel said. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t like this golf course, I wouldn\u2019t come here and play every year. \u2026 I\u2019ve enjoyed this golf course. When it\u2019s benign, it\u2019s gettable. When it\u2019s the way it is the last two days with the wind blowing, it\u2019s a challenge. I wanted to make sure I informed him on that. I said, \u2018Maybe you should be more informed of the situation,\u2019 and that was it. I walked back to the drop area, hit a shot and walked off with a \u20186.\u2019 There was no more said.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spectator, however, was removed from the grounds, a police officer later told Horschel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018I didn\u2019t ask for him to be kicked out,\u2019\u201d Horschel said. \u201cThey said, \u2018No, I guess he\u2019s been saying some other stuff throughout the day,\u2019 and they proceeded to just escort him out of here. Listen, everyone has a right to say things. I think there\u2019s just a level of respect \u2013 understand we\u2019re trying to do a job out here. We are really good golfers, and we can make the game look very easy, but at the end of the day, it is a job. \u2026 I think I can interact with a crowd as much or as little as anybody out here. But I just think it should be respectful. That\u2019s all I ask for. It\u2019s not like I\u2019m going to their job sniping off to them a little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut like I said, it\u2019s fine. I don\u2019t care. At that moment, I hit a bad golf shot, I questioned somebody, and the guy said a few more things, and I just said, \u2018You need to be more informed on what I said.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Horschel added bogeys at Nos. 17 and 18, playing his final four holes in 5 over to card a 2-over 73 and make the cut on the number at even par. Horschel chalked up the poor finish to bad golf swings, not being rattled by what happened at No. 15.<\/p>\n
\u201cA fan affecting me out on the golf course will never happen,\u201d Horschel said. \u201cI affect myself enough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As if playing the Bear Trap wasn\u2019t difficult enough, Billy Horschel had to deal with a mouthy spectator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-494897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}