Billy Horschel had an idea. He wanted to spend a few days with some rising stars on the APGA Tour helping them with their games and bringing in some experts from different disciplines to prepare these players for the next season. So what did Billy do?
He asked APGA Players Troy Taylor II, Andrew Walker, and EJ Whiten Jr. to join him for a few days at TPC Sawgrass – home of the PGA TOUR – for a training camp. Billy also tapped into his team and network to help.
Dr. Bhrett McCabe, a licensed clinical and sports psychologist, founder of The MindSide, and Billy’s mental game coach signed on.
Alex Bennett, Director of Athletic Performance at the PGA Tour’s Performance Center and Billy’s strength and conditioning coach, stepped up.
Joe Plecker, Director of Golf Instruction at The Landings Club, GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher in America, and PGA Master Golf Professional, also raised his hand to help.
And we brought our cameras along to capture the action, passion and inspiration.
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What does the game of golf mean to you? And stay on top control with an eight iron. I can bring it down. I can control. Yes. Give me that one. Give me that one. Go in. Is that good enough? pressure is going to go back here and we’re going to go bombs away soon. Appreciate. I love the game of golf. I think it’s the greatest sport in the world. I’ve wanted, you know, more people to experience it. That golf is more than just winning and losing. It’s about creating relationships and opening doors and creating possibilities that unless you’re inside the game of golf, you would never know how special this sport can be. It’s trial and error. It’s trying every little thing you possibly think. I’ve worked for Billy Horchel. been on his team for probably five or six years and he’s shared his vision of APGA for a long time all rigid and stuff and he’s brilliant at connecting and mentoring young players. He brought up the idea of doing a collaborative program with him to share the secrets of what the best players do and help them along their developmental journey. He’s been a great guy to me and to the other APGA guys and all the support that he’s given us. When I heard about the opportunity to work with Billy, I was super excited. I’ve gotten to meet Billy and get to know him a little bit over the past few years. He’s been extremely influential in uh the APGA tour. He’s kind of taking me under his wing even before all this happened when I was in college. Uh gives me a chance to come down and pick one of the greats right now. How he goes about business, how he goes about golf. I was just thrilled to be a part of something like this. when she called me and told me we’re going to be here today. Um, super excited for the next couple days and all the things that he’s going to provide to try to make us grow and become the best golfers that we can. Just the idea of being able to spend an entire day with him and his team, you know, kind of see what makes him tick, pick his brain, that experience is absolutely invaluable. But we get a lot in 24 hours. [Music] I really got the idea in my head of becoming a professional golfer when I was really young. I was always a competitive kid, always a competitive person. Have been my entire life, but really, you know, just wanted more to just push the game as far as I could possibly push it from a very young age. You take them 50s. Dang. Tell me about the hat. The signature hat. I’ve been wearing this since I was eight. Seven, eight years old. So, my dad always wore this. The whole reason I got into golf was I wanted to do everything my dad and my older brother did. So, eventually I just started wearing the hat and it just kind of stuck. Played in a lot of junior golf tournaments, whether it was US kids, Power Belt Minis, eventually AJA’s, Golf Week, Junior Tour events, and had a lot of success as a junior and I and it was it was never like enough cuz I just really just wanted to keep on winning and keep pushing myself. When you start really neutral with your chin just a little bit behind your belt, you’ve either got to go back and stay back or if you go this way, you’d better bend back to shallow the club. We like to make it easy, simple. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to go to Michigan State University. If I look at like my college career, um I I went through a lot of up and downs in college and a lot of that was, you know, kind of figuring out who I was. So, we’re going to play with our setup here, which is going to be adding the amount of side bend we need at address. Got And this is because again of that trail shoulder and what you do to deliver the club. I love the grip. I love the forces. People who make it in this game and in whatever profession they choose are the ones who are willing to sacrifice. It’s a lot to kind of put it bluntly is uh what of what you need to sacrifice. Beautiful move of the upper body axis there too. And if we kept that line there, how good is that? Love that hip to the target and chin behind belt. Beautiful. Now you’re set. You just get to rotate and rip it. You absolutely crushed the golf ball. I mean, it’s just awesome, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. Just whatever Troy Yeah. his swing speed is when it comes in here, just say I was one more. A little bit hotter. All right. I love it. Great work. Thank you, man. appreciate it. My mind goes in that first practice stroke. I’m like critiquing the stroke, I guess. You know, I know what you mean. Listen, but and don’t Why you’re saying why? Like you because you’ve done the work on your stroke. You just trust your stroke. Yeah. Now, now just go. Don’t even make another one. That’s good space there. Really good pace. Everything I do is I’m always looking at the hole. I’m I’m envisioning that my the break needs a break, the speed of the putt, and then I come in, I look, make sure I’m lined up where I want, and then I go. I’ve never understood why guys would look down and make a practice stroke. What’s what what’s the benefit out of that? If I’m going to make a practice stroke, even when I used to make practice strokes, I always used to look at the hole cuz that’s the only part you’re worried about. I’m only trying to make a practice stroke and feel how hard I need to hit it. When I look down here, I lose my depth perception. You know, my depth perception, I’m I’m I have nothing here. I’m just making a stroke to make a stroke. Good putt. I’ve put in a lot of work into my mental game over the past like year. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Perfect. And it’s really been paying off because I I’ve been able to like find myself in situations where my game’s just not quite there, but I’m able to stay in it mentally to the point where I’m able to, I guess, figure it out. um be scrappy, you know, not count myself out of it just because I hit six fairways the last two days, you know, safe. I think swing living on the edge. They’re learning to understand their interaction with the game. Understanding who they are in the biggest high pressure moments. Most important thing I want for any athlete is to understand what their own way is. I don’t want them to think, oh, I have to do it because Billy does it this way or uh somebody else does it a different way. being able to share with them and listen to what they like and what their natural mentality is is critical. And so I was able to do that today and I think maybe alleviate some of their misconceptions maybe what the mental game should be and get them to believe in who they are and what and the way that they go about competing. I think the thing that I loved about golf was it’s myself and I can’t blame anybody else. It made me really kind of grow up a lot faster. This one’s cool. that left leg be shaking and realize the things that golf provides you. Just not on the golf course, but in real life, you know, you wake up and things aren’t going your way and you got to figure out a way to get it done. I don’t know. If it’s not working and you’re trying to rotate through it and this just stalls and goes that way, that arm like you’re good enough to be like, I got to square the face. So, that arm is just going to go this way rather than you getting it out of the way and letting that arm actually like lengthen and rotate through. Makes sense. My dad played basketball in college at Ohio State and he was just kind of getting into the game with somebody. So that was just kind of like my first kind of introduction to the game. How’d that feel? Way different. Those first eight I hit were It was more just fun trying to go out there with him in the evenings and get some holes in. I never want to forget the significance of of this trail arm. It it is a hammer. And for you, we don’t want any manipulation. I think that’s just what made me find the love for it at first. Same thing. high high right shorter. Oh, that’s that’s beautiful. 140 on the dot and it spun 63 which is awesome. We signed up to do one of the hardest things as a profession and you don’t win a lot in this game. A lot of other sports you have the feeling of victory in this game. A lot of guys have really great careers and never wins. Now golf’s not dangerous. I’m going to do that next year actually. You could never think, “Man, I got it. I’m the greatest there ever is.” I would love for you to say, “Man, I got no fear whatsoever.” It’s not realistic. Fear goes, “Yeah, that’s great. What’s the risk of that?” Are you willing to lose it all to have that choice of success? I mean, it’s a five out of a out of a bunker. I mean, it’s not the easiest shot to hit. There you go. That’s great. I think the first thing is having love for the game and being passionate about it. And then second off, just wanting to enjoy the process of the grind of the highs and the lows. This is what I need to do. Make good clean contact. I’m going to focus on keeping the right shoulder high, choke down a little bit, three/4er swing, look at the front of the ball. You know, all these little things sort of add up to making really good contact. Okay, five iron, if I keep it at a square face and I catch it thin, like it’s going to go into lip, but I’m going to open up a five iron that sort of a sixiron loft, but it gives me because it’s longer and I hit it further, like it gives me some yardage to play with. So, I can I can just focus on getting up in the air. Okay. So, open it up a little bit. Oh, money. Was that 190? 200. Wow. Shoot. Caught it flush. Everybody’s avenues are different to make it to the highest level, but just trying to figure out what works for Troy. All of us, I feel like, are really good enough to make it to the the highest level, but I think there’s a separation of just how you carry yourself. It’s more mental than I would say physical talents for a lot of us. Find that thing that makes you be a consistent golfer all the time and gets all your talent out. And I feel like that’s more for mentality and uh just mental strength on the golf course and how I handle things. That was much better. That was nice. Golf is a very lonely sport. It’s an individual sport. You know, when you have a team sport, you have other teammates there. You have coaches there that are always around that you can sort of lean on and and go to for for help and support. in golf’s not not always that way. Yes, you have a swing coach that you can sort of lean on a little bit, but there’s never a teammate there to pick you up when you’re down. I know it’s different. There you go. I kind of fell out of the love with the sport. Um, just didn’t enjoy it anymore and got a call from Howard University, Sam Prairie, my coach, and just decided to take that leap again and and go after it. Push that right leg into the wall. Keep that weight forward. There you go. Now rotate. Oh yeah. Hold it or just Nope. 10 reps. Taking that new opportunity being at Howard, being in Washington DC, uh, would just be great for my game. And it’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me. Right there. Right there. Right there. Feel outside that. The game teaches you a lot about life and you get to meet all different types of people. You see, I’m I’m You’re still going. Yeah. You see? And you see how you stop and your arm takes over? Yeah. Yes. But I’m trying to like not move too much. Don’t worry about moving. Don’t worry about moving. The only movement I don’t want to have is go back. The only movement I don’t want to have is you going backwards. Yes. I don’t care about moving. I just don’t want you to go fall back. That’s okay. Being an individual out there and learning to deal with a bad swing or a bad thought and just persevering and pushing through the whole round has taught me a lot about my life and just certain things that I’d have to overcome there. My buddy got me introduced to the game. He was a really good player in my area and I decided to give it a shot. I’d played every pretty much every other sport growing up. Stuck with golf and uh dropped everything else. Finish with low hands and cover it with that right shoulder. It’s going to feel like you’re getting around the corner with your right side. There you go. Look at that. Was decent. That was decent. Just keeping it very simple in the beginning and then just going to public courses around Chesapeake and Virginia Beach and just loving the game. Bigger swing. It’s better, but you’re still adding. And you hold it. Did he hold it? I hold it. You hold it. You have to be very committed to this game, especially golf is a very hard sport. It’s an individual sport. You’re by yourself a lot. You got to put in the hard work. Swing. Stay right. Stay right. Oh, what a shot. Good swing. Golf is just Golf is brutal sometimes. Little clunky. Is that okay? A little clunky. Everything’s a little clunky with you. I’ll take clunky to 10 ft every time. On a force plate, we have a graph. That’s a horizontal force side to side. Mhm. We call that the X axis. This is the Y. So when we lay it down on the ground like this, we have shifting and turning. And your lead foot, your left foot, is really responsible for torque. You have a ridiculous engine. You have such speed. It’s crazy. But we need brakes. Yeah. If I put the brakes on, that makes it go faster. Okay. Beautiful. One more. You got it. Run it. So, I think we’re finding you right now. You know what I mean? I think the mental game is everything in golf. You should always try and be positive. And like I said, like like golf and life are similar. You know, try and have a positive mindset. It’s tough. It’s tough being out there by like you said, by yourself. Um, you got to be your biggest supporter, your biggest cheerleader. So, I think having a good mental can take you a long way. Nice. There you go. That’ll work. Clanky little clanky. It’s clanky. Little clanky. To create shots is about little little tweaks here. Move, ball position, little subtle little things you do in your swing just to get what you want, whatever it may be. It’s not massive. It’s trying different things. You know, I like that shot. I want to learn what how he hit that shot. You know, it’s not learning how he swung the golf club. It’s how he did he hit that shot, figure out my own feels, used it in my own way. We often hear trust the process. But it’s more than just trusting it. It’s investing yourself in it, making the decisions to drive it, and then understanding how that process is tested under the highest pressure moments. We never solve the game. The game will get its piece back from you. Just trying to keep my right shorter higher, which allows me to feel I covered easier that way. No one ever learns everything about golf and we can get as much as we can and then pass it on. Pull that belt loop out of my finger. A great teacher teaches everyone. And if you want to teach, you better not ever stop learning. When you start getting to little nuances and what makes someone else a little bit better than that player, a lot of times it comes down to the mentality of of that player and the way they practice and the way they see things. It’s okay to have your own thought process. Besides that, just address, have a plan, be confident in your own skin cuz then your body has to turn. You have to trust your process, trust what you do, trust how you practice. When you fold that arm, you can be more aggressive. Is a perfectionist, some would say. And uh it’s not a bad thing. There you go. There’s your height. I’ve been wearing it for over a year. Got to remind myself when you’re playing good, it’s easy to play fearless and make fearless golf swings. You know, we’re not born great. We learned how to to overcome challenges to develop the belief being able to I guess be vulnerable and tell him like, “Hey, these are some of the things I’m struggling with my in in my game. Have you ever dealt with anything like that?” To, you know, hear that he’s kind of gone through some of some of the struggles himself. Your body needs to continue to move to square the face up at Was able to give me a couple of keys to work on in my game just to help me get over some of the hurdles that I’m facing. It’s it’s pretty awesome. Happy to. Happy to. Really cool just to get to spend time with him out here and have a casual round, but also get to just watch his ball up close and see what happens and just see how close my game can compare to his from a ball striking standpoint. Shout out Billy. The fact that he’s been out here with us all day since 6:30 this morning um just shows how dedicated he is to um helping the next generation or just helping people in general. Troy, listen, these are three guys that I think, you know, have the potential to make it in professional golf. That’s their dream. I think they they have that ability, have that desire and that that talent, you know, just trying to help them out any way I can and be a supportive friend. I’m not complaining. I didn’t say you were complaining. So happy to be here right now, Billy. I know how you play golf. You haven’t complained once, EJ. I’m having so much fun.
